Part 18 (2/2)

Modern man by the method of positive science seeht which puts hiives him the revelation of his true nature, as indicated in the words of Scripture: ”Let us ence said: ”Let there be light”--and there was a oes at a touch ”Let man fly in the air and rise far above all the birds of creation”--and it was so ”Let the voices of shi+pwrecked mariners travel mysteriously and without sound, and reach distant places”--and it was so ”Let things multiply, plants in their varieties, so that all men may have the ination has created when it has started fro truth Only then has it accos

Like the tiny bird which hid under the wing of an eagle about to soar, and when it had been thus borne up to an ian to fly still higher by its own efforts--so too is man, who at first holds fast to Nature, attaches himself to her by means of the most severe speculations, and with her soars aloft in search of truth; then he disengages hiination creates over and above Nature herself In this manner man seems to reflect divine attributes; the randiose forle, could not even have conceived it

Original sin is an allegory of this eternal story, of the man _ished to act for himself_, to substitute himself for God, to emancipate himself from Him, and to create Whereupon he fell into impotence, slavery and misery

The mind that works by itself, independently of truth, works in a void Its creative power is a _ upon _reality_ But it confuses the means with the end, it is lost

This kind of _sin_ of the intelligence, so akin to original sin, the sin of confounding the means with the end, recurs in every form as a ”force of inertia” which pervades the psychical life Thus man confounds the means, which is simpler, easier and more comprehensible, with the end in many of his functions Thus, for exaluttony, and the appetite an end in itself, the body, instead of renewing itself in health and purity, is poisoned Again, when in the reproduction of species the sexual emotion becomes an end in itself rather than a eneration and sterility result Man is guilty of a like sin against the intelligence when he eht for its own sake, without basing it upon truth; by so doing he creates an unreal world, full of error, and destroys the possibility of creating in reality, like a God, producing external works

Thus positive science represents to us the ”redeinal sin, a return to the _natural laws_ of psychical energy Scientists are like those ypt, were permitted to explore the Land of Prorapes that it took two men to carry it, and the people saith amazement

So have the scientists of to-day penetrated into the Promised Land of truth, where lies the secret which enables man to scrutinize Nature; and they have co marvelous fruits for all men to see The secret is a simple one: it consists of an exact method based on observation, prudence, and patience All ht be allowed to share the secret, for indeed such virtues correspond to the ”occult,” intimate needs of their spiritual life

It may be asked: Why should only explorers enter in, while the people re the fruits of their labors?

Is it because the method of positive science, which putsup realities--and hence of building up his own ie of the chosen few?

That ht to be the method by which all new hueneration

In the Bible story, the explorers were the ers, and the witnesses to the existence of the Promised Land, into which the whole people was to enter And so it is here: all men should come under the influence of the scientific method; and every child should be able to experiment at first hand, to observe, and to put hiination will start froence will be directed into its natural channels of creation

=Truth is also the basis of artistic ience is not liical reasoning upon which great scientific discoverieswhich none can say, as in the presence of certain scientific discoveries; ”I also ht have been able to do this”

Dante, Milton, Goethe, Raphael, Wagner, are ence, which cannot be classed with the si Nevertheless, every ination, he has the instinct to create the beautiful with his mind; and from this instinct duly developed come all the vast treasures of art, scattered alold wherever there was an intensity of civil life, wherever the intelligence had time to mature in peace In every province which has preserved traces of ancient peoples we find local artistic types of work, of furniture, of poetic songs and popular music This multiform creation of the inner man, then, enfolds him and protects his spirit in its intellectual needs, just as the iridescent shell encloses thematerial reality, there is a creative hich lifts her world which every soul may attain, within its individual limits

Yet no one can say thatWhat is called _creation_ is in reality a composition, a construction raised upon a _primitive material_ of the mind, which must be collected froeneral principle summed up in the ancient axiom: _Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensa_ (There is nothing in the intellect which was not first in the senses) We are unable to ”is which do not actually present the to us to explain things lying beyond those customary liination of Michelangelo was unable to picture God otherwise than as a venerable old ine the eternal torments of hell, we talk of fire; we think of Paradise as a place of light Those born blind and deaf can form no definite idea of sensations they have never been able to perceive It is well known that persons blind fro theine red as the sound of a trumpet, blue as the sweet music of the violin The deaf, when they read descriptions of delicious ine the classic beauty of a painted picture The temperaments of poets and artists are pre-eminently sensorial And all the senses do not contribute in equal ination; but certain senses are often predominant Musicians are auditive, and are inclined to describe the world froale in the silence of a wood; the patter of the rain in the solitude of the country-side, reata tract of country, will dwell only on its silences and noises Others again, whose susceptibilities are predominantly visual, are is Or it s; the tactile impressions of softness and harshness, which inative types in whom the tactile and muscular sensations predominate

There are persons who have had non-sensorial impressions, and they are persons whose spiritual life was of very great intensity They have _internal iination, but must be accepted as realities simply perceived That they are realities is affirmed not only by the introspection of normal subjects, but by the effect upon their internal personality ”The revelations vouchsafed by God,” says Saint Teresa, ”are distinguished by the great spiritual benefits hich they enrich the soul; they are accoht, discernment, and wisdom” But if such persons wish to describe these impressions which do not penetrate by e of sensorial impression ”I heard a voice,” says the Blessed Raymond of Capua, ”which was not in the air, and which pronounced words that reached my spirit, but not my ear; nevertheless I understood it more distinctly than if it had come to me from an external voice I could not reproduce this voice, if I can call that a voice which had no sound This voice formed words and presented them to my spirit” The Life of Saint Teresa abounds in similar descriptions, in which she tries to convey, by the inappropriate language of the senses, what she saw, not with her eyes, but with her soul

The difference between these internal impressions, which occur in others as well as in saints (and certainly do not constitute saintliness), and the hallucinations of the insane, is clearly marked

In the mades deposited by the sensorial memory, which project themselves into the external world whence they were taken, with external sensorial characteristics; so that the sufferer really believes that he sees his phantasms with his actual eyes, and that he hears the voices which persecute hiical condition; the whole personality reveals signs of his organic decadence, the conco aside, then, direct spiritual impressions of very rare occurrence, not to be looked upon even as aids to sanctity, impressions which may forists or the lish Society of Psychical Research, but which do not enter into educational conceptions, there rele material of construction for intellectual activities: that of the senses

Iination can have only a sensory basis

The sensory education which prepares for the accurate perception of all the differential details in the qualities of things, is therefore the foundation of the observation of things and of phenomena which present themselves to our senses; and with this it helps us to collect froination