The Law and the Word

CHAPTER I

SOME FACTS IN NATURE

If I were asked what, in my opinion, distinguishes the thought of the

present day from that of a previous generation, I should feel inclined

to say, it is the fact that people are beginning to realize that Thought

is a power in itself, one of the great forces of the Universe, and

ultimately the greatest of forces, directing all the others. This idea

seems to be, as the French say, "in the air," and this very well

expresses the state of the case--the idea is rapidly spreading through

many countries and through all classes, but it is still very much "in

the air." It is to a great extent as yet only in a gaseous condition,

vague and nebulous, and so not leading to the practical results, both

individual and collective, which might be expected of it, if it were

consolidated into a more workable form. We are like some amateurs who

want to paint finished pictures before they have studied the elements of

Art, and when they see an artist do without difficulty what they vainly

attempt, they look upon him as a being specially favoured by Providence,

instead of putting it down to their own want of knowledge. The idea is

true. Thought _is_ the great power of the Universe. But to make it

practically available we must know something of the principles by which

it works--that it is not a mere vaporous indefinable influence floating

around and subject to no known laws, but that on the contrary, it

follows laws as uncompromising as those of mathematics, while at the

same time allowing unlimited freedom to the individual.

Now the purpose of the following pages, is to suggest to the reader the

lines on which to find his way out of this nebulous sort of thought into

something more solid and reliable. I do not profess, like a certain

Negro preacher, to "unscrew the inscrutable," for we can never reach a

point where we shall not find the inscrutable still ahead of us; but if

I can indicate the use of a screw-driver instead of a hatchet, and that

the screws should be turned from left to right, instead of from right to

left, it may enable us to unscrew some things which would otherwise

remain screwed down tight. We are all beginners, and indeed the

hopefulness of life is in realizing that there are such vistas of

unending possibilities before us, that however far we may advance, we

shall always be on the threshold of something greater. We must be like

Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up--heaven defend me from ever feeling

quite grown up, for then I should come to a standstill; so the reader

must take what I have to say simply as the talk of one boy to another in

the Great School, and not expect too much.

The first question then is, where to begin. Descartes commenced his book

with the words "Cogito, ergo sum." "I think, therefore I am," and we

cannot do better than follow his example. There are two things about

which we cannot have any doubt--our own existence, and that of the world

around us. But what is it in us that is aware of these two things, that

hopes and fears and plans regarding them? Certainly not our flesh and

bones. A man whose leg has been amputated is able to think just the

same. Therefore it is obvious that there is something in us which

receives impressions and forms ideas, that reasons upon facts and

determines upon courses of action and carries them out, which is not the

physical body. This is the real "I Myself." This is the Person we are

really concerned with; and it is the betterment of this "I Myself" that

makes it worth while to enquire what our Thought has to do in the

matter.