/ • - >. ' i 1 ' '^ 1 , i^^HrI ^H m ! \ \ 1 \ • ; P' Ifj ■.„'-• i ( J / ) 4 1 ; 1 \ , 1; ' ! '; . '■ 1 ■ ■> ;'■„ .i 1 ' \ 1 ' r ; ' ■ t i t > ' f ^AjlasLtJtK ii.... ..-^^ mmm ^^^^^^^HH' ■: ^ itUH^^^H ^^^^^^^^^^R' ■ ikiiif'iliiii 1 libii'i THE Zi^navus % ? BY Blbert Cnn\ 1902. y>-:y(n-»a'7gr<"ii iMi i m .m< iiwii yriiii f^iSRARY OF I' >-tfc8 R£?SIVEO a 1502 V ^iKiift^ XXa No. iff 'T't Copyright 1902 Th« Robert V. C.arr Print. I 'he i^nsvu? M THE MATERIAL ENTITY. ATTER of Itself Is a dull and sluggish principle, It is darkness, ignorance and grossness. It is cold and inert. However, it strangely responds to all the influences of the higher principles, and while under these in- fluences submissively conforms to their laws. Still, whatever of a higher or more spiritual nature en- ters into or is mingled with It, is coarsened or grossened in manifestation, to the degree, which the material principle ex- ceeds in the union or compound. Thus while matter serves as a medium for the manifes- tation of the higher principles, when in excess, It asserts It- self, by so modifying and adapting this manifestaUon to the peculiarities of its own nature as to impair and In extreme cases even distort the depression of the higher principles. When the higher predominate in the association, ex- actly the reverse takes place. Under these conditions mat- ter is refined and the expression of the higher principles, given a perfection, which spiritualizes the manifestation. There is but one perfect idea, underlying the whole of mani- festation and the perfection in v/hlch it Is expressed in niat- ter is dependent entirely upon the relative proporuons of the material and spiritual In the medium. The relative propor- tions of these two fundamental principles determines the quality of the manifestor. The more material ^ the lower and baser the quality ; the more spiritual the higher and more noble the quality. The lov/er octaves of being are grossly material but as v/e ascend toward the higher octaves, the crudity of the material man takes form, more and more. Increased spirituality gradually replaces imperfection with perfection, as the dav/n dissolves the shades of night, until at last the spiritual man like the morning sun breaks forth in ail his glory to rule and govern the new day, In the words of the New Testament, ^*Sown in corrup- tion it is raised In incorruption. Sown in dishonor it is raised in glory. Sown in weakness it is raised in power. Sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body. The first man, Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit. Hov/beit that was net first which is spiri- tual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. And as v/c have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the hccwenly.'* The woi-d Natural as used in this text signifies the ma- terial : the corrupt, the impermanent and changeable ; incor- rupt, the permanent or unchangeable; the mortal, the im- perfect; the im^mortal, the perfect. The material man in which the spiritual man is contained has, in scripture, been compared to a vessel, such as a jar or bowl. It says in second Timothy: "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man there fore purge himself from these (sins, iniqtiities, imperfections) he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the master's use and prepared unto every good v/ork." 4. It S3./S ia Gaiddaas: ''Tals oiily /vould I learn of you: Received 370 the spirit 'oy the works of the lav/, or by hear- ing- the faith? Are ye so foolish? havin;j begun in the spirit, are ye now made pariect in the flesh?" Then in Corinthians, "But the natural man receiveth not the thia[;s of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned," Then we find in Romans this conclusive declaration : "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Now, what is Christ? Ke is ?. revelation of the spiritual man to the material man. The material man is crude and gross and requires man-made oc ardlicial law for his government. He is not evil, but imperfect, unevolved. The more the spiritual man iateisiies in the physical body; the more the essences of the higher principles are drav/n down into it, the more the physical body, ripens and refines. Ta-^ more we drav/ this divine spirit dov/n into our material being, the more perfect in presence and refined in substance the material man becomes. The more perfect in form and refined In substance the material man becomes the less he corrupts and grossens, the manifestations of the perfect idea within — even Christ. Think not to escape the 3truj;gie, for yoa must either rise above '('[i^. law or perish by the law. There is no salvation in the law alone. There is salvation, not because you dare not kill, but because you have no desire to kill. There is no iiiethod by which you can escape the natural persecution of existence. The natural man is created that he rnay exper- ience. His meed is therefore pain. The spiritual man, only, can expcri^ace tr,ie happiness. That which the material man conceives to be happiness is merely an illusive form of happiness known as pleasure, which is in rea'iLy only a pas- sive form of pain. "In this world," says Marie Correli, "no one, however harmless, is allowed to continue happy." The material man, I hive named the Ignavus. Ignavus is a Latin word signifying dull or sluggish. Hence the term applies particularly to the gross, earthy principle of the body, and is considered as a thing or an entity. To entertain a proper idea concietely of the Ignavus as an entity, you must iraagine a stupid, idiotic being, with ex- traordinary olfactory powers, inordinate appetite and gov- erned in all its manifestation by a brain in its belly, scien- tifically known as the solar plexus. This is the earthy man of the earth earthy, and not until the spiritual man is drawn down into it and graduall)^ insphered in its very substance does it begin to exhibit the marvelous and beautifying changes of evolving perfection. 6. THE INST.rmM.ENT OF MANIFESTATION. •-"f^HE material man is the gross, crudo creature of cor- "^ ruption — the IpTiavus. The reason why man is a3 he is, i^i because the spiri- tual man has bec3::ie aa3oa>cioaj ot ais -j.va individuality. He has become innoctuated in the gToss consciousness of the material man. it is only when ihe spiriuial man recovers consciousness of his own divine individuality, that the phy- sical body begins to pass through the changes from the gross to the relined ; and exhibit that high slate of rehnement in which the spirit itself shines through. "There is an old Hindu story," says Sv/ami Viveka- nanda in his work entitled Raja Yoga, that 'TNDRA the king of the gods bec£n:e a pig, wallowing in the mire. He had a she pig and a lot of baby pigs and was very happy. Then some other gods saw his plight and came to him and told him, 'You are me king of the gods, you have all the gods at your command. Why ?re you here? But Indra said: 'Let me be; I am all light here; I do not car^j loi* the heaven, while I have this sow and these little pigs.' **The poor gods were at their wit's ends what to do. After a time they decided to slowly come and slay one of the liitlepigs, and then another, until they had slain all the pigs and the sow too. When all were dead Indra began to weep and mourn. Then the gods ripped his pig-body open, and he came out of it, and began to laugh when he realized what a hideous dream he had had ; he, the king of the gods, to have become a pig, and to think that that pig-life was the only life. Not only sc, but to have v/anted the whcle uni- verse to come inio the pig-life." Perhaps you do nor believe in the soiritual man? Per- haps you believe that all there is to man is his material being, and that, that being begins with the m.aterial life and ends with it? But stop and consider, You are arguing 7. with a frieal. 2'oti gaze into his eyes, and see in their depths changes, tlut from moment to moment, reveal to yon more or less, the cilect of yoar argument. Duriiig the night this friend is ;>:.ken sick. You are called to his bedsiide to watch over aad care for him. Ever and anon during your vigil you feel his hand and look into his eyes for informa- tion. In the morning he is dead. You look into his eyes, then, and what do you see? iSfothing, but the eyes. Before his death, ".^hen you v/as arguing with him, you saw somethia.!^ ill ili eyes: som:imin;^ appar^atl;^ living in their depths to which you talked. You certainly did not at that time tiYz t ) his face, to his head, or his eyeballs, but to an intelligence which you perceived to be present in the eyes : a iometbing inside his body v^^dth v/hich you instinctive- ly felt to be ia communication. That same something you felt in his hand when he was alive. Do you feel it in the dead hand? No it is gone. Nov/, be honest and iidrnit up- on instinct, even if your intelligence refuses, that if you really de sir vid to move a man's feelings or convince his mind, you v/ouid rather talk to that something in the depths of his eyes, than the back of his head. Viewing the corpse you say, he is dead. How dead? The life has gone out of him. No, the intelligent spirit, the spiritual man which ruled and governed the physical and in- tellectual processes of his being has gone out or withdrawn from him. As for the life, the body is stili full of that. There is enough life stored up in the substance of that body to keep a dog alive for a month. Look at that piece of oak wood. You call it dead wood. Why dead? Certainly not because there is no life in it. There is enough life in that piece of wood to keep you warm for half a day. Life is heat, heat is fire, fire is light. Life, heat, and Ught, three in one, a most blessed trinity. When a man, an animal or a plant dies something has withdrawn from it, which held its parts in harmony together, which directed its growth and repair, and which furnished the intelligence for the evolution of its form and figure. It 13 certain that a man does not die because the life has been v/ithdrawn. Nothing is more scientifically certain than this. He is dead only at that point where his intelligence, his spiritual man, ceases to act. The material man of himself is always dead. He is the dead man. Decomposition is always going on within him, and but for the resisting forces of the spiritual man within, exterior forces would soon disintegrate and return him to the elements. From the food he eats and assimilates, life in a latent form in the substance thus consumed, is stored up in his body and is under the direction of the spirit- ual man, used to supply waste and resist disorganization. With every breath drawn into the body some of this stored up substance is destroyed and life in the form of heat liberat- ed. By this continued destruction and constructive replacement he lives. He dies in part and is replaced in part every breath he draws. But when the waste caused by this destruction ceases to be systematically replaced under the direction of an intelligent entity, residing within him, he is no longer able to resist destruction and so he is decomposed and de- voured by the forces cf the exterior world. Man is a subject of irritation from the cradle to the grave. The light waves irritate his eyes, the scent waves sere the membrane of his nose, the sound waves pound the drums of his ears, the taste waves sting his tongue, and by hot waves and cold waves, pressures and impingements, his physical body is tortured all the days of his life. But the spiritual man, by his servant, the mind, clothes the majority of these sorrows with the beautiful forms and sensations of illusion, making the normal irritations endurable. A sunbeam gives the retina of the eye a slight singe, within the degree of normality, and the irrita- 9. tion is carried by a nerve to the organ oi the eye wilLin the brain; here it is mentalized and uzn2m)ttGci to the mind, which clothing it with idea presents it to consciousness as a ray of light. AJ.1 the irritations applied to the physical body, both normal and abnormal, though derived through different organs of sensation, are transmitted to consciousness by the same pro ; s;;;. But the eye, becoming diseased and sensi- tive isunabi'-. \:- bear even the normal irritsticn oi; 'vviiat is known to oar ■:oiisciouGness as ligiit» The world as we see it, feel it, hear it, breathe it and smell it, is withia us. The whole picture exists kineticaily within the mind, 07he entire world in its realitj" is a destroyer and we are able to resist its destruction only just so long as we consume and assimilate food and it is distributed through our body by an intelligence, sufficient to direct replacement and repair according to an es- tablished method of being and plan of structure. Ah, but you say the brain furnishes this intelligence and the brain is a part of the material m.an- — the Ignavus. Destroy the brain and all consciousness and intelligence is obliterated. Yes, destroy any part of a machine of any kind and action of that machine will be impaired to the extent of the im- portance of the part destroyed. The material man is a machine or instrument through and by which one spiritual man is enabled to communicate with the outer world and other spiritual men. The eye is a machine by which one spiritual man is en- abled to communicate by sight with the outer world and other spiritual men. If that instrument is destroyed all com- munication with the outer world or other spiritual men by sight is cut off. The ear is another instrument. The tongue is another, the nose another. Each of these instru- ments reveals only those things ivhich by its mechanism it is adapted to reveaL The body without the other common senses is an instru- iO meat which servea to reveal by touch. It is also a ■■lachine for doing certain things. Here is a telegraphic ins Irument : it is a machine hy which one operator is enabled to comrnuni- cale With another a thousand miles away. The machine breaks, and all communication of the rapid kind made pos- sible by this intrurnent is cut oil between them, until the in- strument, the machine is repaired or replaced. vVhen the spiritual man conceived that there v/ere other worlds outside his own little world, he proceeded to create an instrument or machine which v^^ould enable him to com- municate with the world outside himself. From the creation of the first human machine, by the application of the exper- ience and knov/ledge acquired through its instrumentality the machine has been greatly improved. In the phases of ani- mal life up to that of man we find specimens of it in all the various stages or its evolution. No intelligent inventor will attempt to construct a machine arbitrarily. He will fashion it in conformity with the laws and conditions o£ that to which its utility is directed, otherwise his labor would be vain. Hence we see, that which is to be revealed establishes funda- mentally the structural principles of the instrument or m.a- chine which will serve to reveal it. So long, therefore, as the human machine fully serves the purpose of the spiritual man he v/ill remain with it. When the instrument ceases to do this, he abandons it. As an observer the material m.an is an instrument, as a doer he is a machine. When this instrument or machine is abandoned by the spiri- tual man, the spiritual man advanced intellectually by the ex- perience he has acquired through it, immediatly proceeds to study out a new and improved machine. The trouble, hov/ever, with the average spiritual machinist is he becomes absorbed during life with his material machine ; so lost in the fancies and illusions woven upon it, that he looses his identity in it, as an over earnest il actor looses for the time his identity in the part which he has assumed. In this state, as the machine becomes worn and wobbly, he assumes a similar condition and conforms in sympathy, his intelligence to it. Thus the reflexes of the material machine become di- recting influences of the spirit. The master, now. acts un- der the advice of the slave. A point is soon reached when the master kills the slave. When the spiritual man acquires conscious separateness from the machine, the body, it is within his power, at any period of life, to maintain it in a high state of efficiency. The sensible spirit maintains this separateness of con- sciousness but at the same time so educates, instructs and evolves his machine as to greatly enhance and enlarge its capacity in all directions as a medium between him and the outer world. 12. MATERIALITY AND MENTALITY. Among the faculties of the mind, Alimentiveness is by na- ture the most material — Ignavic. It imparts idea of substance. Wthout this faculty, we would have no consciousness ofsub- stance. as substance. When predominant this faculty gives to all idea the substantial impress of materiality, infusing even the fanciful with this character to such a degree that it ap- pears almost as substantial as objects felt v/ith the hand. It delights in the material side of life; the real and the practical. It gives huge appetite for food, and fondness for liquids — in large quantities. It is indeed, very gross and a guzzler by nature. Its faults are gluttony and voracity. All animals that swallow their prey whole, such as snakes, lizards and fishes have correspondence to this faculty. Hydrophobia and dipsomania are diseases of this faculty. • The snakes and monsters seen in the mania of delirium tremens, are all de- rived from an unduly excited and diseased state of the organ of Alimentiveness. Alimentive people refer continually to arti- cles of food, and the kinds they like and dislike. They dis- cuss common-place subjects and are flat and simple in senti- ment but always pr-actical. They view everything from the utilitarian standpoint. The materialists of the higher order are, however, our practical business people. Our vegetable gardeners, shop-men, cooks and chemists. They love home and the simple domestic life. They are concrete in understand- ing, of course, but they are well content to leave fancy and the spiritual to the idealist, who in most cases they pity and despise. The faculty of Ideality is, in nature, the reverse of Ali- mentiveness. It refines and is, therefore, a principle of the spiritual man. It seeks to dematerialize even the objects of nature and give to them, the light and airy, the vapory im- materiality and aesthetic delicacy of pure mentality, uncloyed and unburdened by substance and the practical realities of matter. 13 Dr. Spurtzheim says: **This faculty produces the de- sire for exquislteness or perfection and is delighted with what the French, in whom it is very large, call, Le beau ideal. It gives inspiration to the poet. The observing or knowing faculties perceive qualities as they exist in nature ; but this faculty desires for its gratification, something more exquisitely perfect than the scenes of reality. It desires to elevate and endow with a splendid excellence every object presented to the mind. It stimulates the faculties which form ideas to create scenes, in which every object is invested with perfec- tion, which it delights to contemplate. When predominant, it gives a manner of thinking and feeling befitting the regions of fancy rather than the abodes of men. Hence those only on whom it is largely bestowed, can possibly be poets. And hence the proverb, 'poeta nacitur non fit.' " Ideality smoothes down the outlines of even the gross and vulgar. Objects seen in the eye of Ideality melt into pure, beau- tiful impressions, which rise above all vulgar sense, and as they appear in idea they have locality only in the mind. The true idealist hunts in vain among the objects of the material world for the ideal of his fancy. In excess ideality produces an extravigant and aesthetic delicacy, exceedingly ridiculous and annoying to the practical mind brought in contact with it. The idealist, however, seldom proves annoying to the materialist for he has a horror and a loathing of the gross and impure, and a disgust for voracity, and a contempt for flatness and simplicity that prevents any closeness with the gross or vulgar. Macaulay's description of the Saxon and the Norman ac- curately contrasts the efiect of Alimentiveness and the influ- ence of Ideality. The Saxon was grossly alimentive and ma- terial ; the Norman extremely ideal. The materialist seeks the useful and solid, the simple and the plain. The idealist, the exquisite and refined. 14 "The Norman" writes the historian ''renounced that bru- tal intemperance to which all other branches of the great Ger- man tribe, were too much inclined. The polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbors. He loved to display his magnificence, notin huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armor, gallant horses ,and choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, banquets elegant rather than abundant and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite flavor than for their intoxicating pov/er." Alimentiveness shows itself in composition by plainness and sim.plicity of style. In the description of the floral and beautiful it is exceedingly fiat and common-place. Stanley, in whom Alimentiveness is quite prominent, uses a profusion of common-place term.s in his description of the tropical vege- tation of the Semliki valley. Here are some of his expressions : "marvelous vegetation-natures 's conservatory-riotous pro- fusion-robust plants." Speaking of the wild banana, he says: "The fronds were gathered at the top of the stalk, like an artificial boquet, but presently spread out two feet wide and ten feet in length, forming graceful curves and most cooling shade, the leaves encircling the flowers, which were like great rosettes with drooping tassels." Just think of that, ye idealists! "Great rosettes with drooping tassels." Can you see any airyness in that? It reminds me of the pic- tures on my grandmother's crockery. Nov/, again: "Then the calamus climbing from one tall tree to another with resolute grasp, next attracted our at- tention." There is something so sailor-like about that "reso- lute grasp," that it would attract most anyone's attention. In the neighborhood of such fern groves the trees were verit- able giants, the orchids in the forks were m.ost numerous, and the elephant eared lichen studded the horizontal branches — ' ' 15 Just think of it: '^studded the hoi-izontal branches/' How it appeals to the ideal sense, to know whether the branches studded with elephant eared lichen were horizontal or perpendicular. This is certainly a very plain and substantial de- scription of a scene in which Ideality migh have found abun- dant subject. He gives but one plain line, very plain line, to the orchids. Those exquisite ancVniarvelous floral-fonns of the air, swaying from branch or litnb, or hovering over the mossy indentation of a rock, or hanging pendant from come protruding bough. How Ideality v/ould have delighted to d'WQll upon the unique and exquisite forms and delicate tints of these butterflies of the vegetable kingdom. Let us, now, contrast Stanley^ s alimentive description with the v/riting of the idealist, J. S. Jenkins. Describing a certain island in the Pacific, he says: ''The land rises grad- ually for some distance from the shore, and then breaks into a succession of mountainous ridges clothed to the top with verdure of the richest green. V/ide tracts of table land lie along the coast ; and there are broad valleys between the ridges, carpeted with the finest tropical flowers and sprinkled with clumps and groves of bread-fruit, pandanus and cocanut. The steep hill sides are fringed with the white foliage of the candlenut ; with the long waving fronds of arborescent ferns and the graceful plumes of the mountain palm. The beautiful, the wild, the pretty and the picturesque are exhibitsd in strik- ing contrast. On one side, there is all the dreamy softness of an Italian landscape ; on the other the sublime grandeur of Alpine scenery. Tiny brooklets, singing ever so many a joy- ous lullaby, course down the upper slopes and anon, v/iden- ing into miniature rivers, leap in cascades of milky foam over precipices seven hundred feet above the level of the ocean. Wild glades and glens there are, within v/hose sylvan reces- ses the spirit of romance might forever love to linger." Pure ideality suspends its thought in the atmosphere of fancy as a sylph floating in the air. 16. THE MODIFICATION. The brain is the material instrument of the mind and it modifies to its quality and character whatever passes by re- flection through it. To illustrate this, we will take the instruments of a brass band. A breath blown into the Tuba, a gross heavy instru- ment, comes forth a gross heavy note. A breath blown into an E flat comes forth a shrill and refined note. The breaths are the same but the instruments are different. The same note blown on the Tuba or bass horn and E fiat differ dis- tinctly in quality and character. Do what you will, you can never blow an E flat note out of a bass horn, and visa versa. The ear is an instrument by which, what is known as sound is transmitted to the brain. On the same principle that a breath blown into a brass horn is modified in quality and character by the instrument, so is sound modified in quality and character b}^ the ear through which it is transmitted to the brain. The ear is a musical instrument. The ear of an ox will, therefore, give to all sound transmitted through it the character and tone of the bass horn or bass viol. The ear of man is a much finer instrument, and probably as a transmitter of sound approximates the E flat cornet or violin in the quality and character of its tone. No two men see the world exactly alike. The quality of the brain, the grade of intelligence, the personal character, the quality of the instruments of the common senses, in each man modifies and qualifies whatever passes through his ma- terial body to the mind. To open this subject more fully to your comprehension, we will take two artists. One a gross alimentive German: the other a fine idealistic Frenchman. Suppose now, you place a cabbage before the French artist and a red rose before the German and request each to paint the object placed before him. "Von wait, and at last, the work is dene. Now, view the product. The rose passing throu.'^h :he concrete mind of the German, comes forth infused v/ith the character ol Alimen- tiveness and appears on his canvas very much like a red cabbage. The cabbage passing through the concrete mind of the French artist, is infused with ideality and appears upon his canvas in the painful exquisiteness of a green rose. Now, reverse the conditions. Let the Frenchman paint the rose and the German the cabbage. How different the result. The cabbage is Alimentive in aspect and character and its impression passing through the Germ.an's brain to the canvas, comes forth in all its perfection. Indeed on his canvas, it is natural enough to eat. The rose, an ideal object really improved by transit through the Frenchman's brain, melts in exquisite loveliness upon his canvas. So perfect is it that the perfume of the flower seems almost to emanate from the picture. Now what does all this prove? That the quality and character of the body and brain, the material instrument, and its common senses, constrains the mind into conformity with it and thus bringing it into correspondence with it, stamps all impression, rippling, flowing or flashed through iii, with its character. Thus even thoughts and ideas, fancies and im- aginations are forced to conform to the quality and character of the material man. The law of limitation or fixity lies in the material instrument — the body. In the beginning the body is fashioned and endowed with quality and character in conform- ity with that of the parents and the exterior conditions and cir- cumstances sympathetically affecting gestation. To this fixity of personality and character the body remains constant all its days, subject, however, to the transient modifications of age, environment, circumstances, habits, and education in the course of life. "My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the 18 earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect ; and in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. — Psalm.s 139. Alimentiveness is the faculty of the woolen stocking. It is Plebean. When the envious Casca spoke of the Roman rabble as ' 'throwing up their sweaty nightcaps," he pro- nounced, probably unconsciously, a satire on Alimentiveness. But in spite of its flatness and simplicity, Alimentiveness is a most important faculty. It seeks the useful, and might have been called, Usefulness. Without it a man would be a dream in the air. Ideality is the faculty of the silk stocking and is Patri- cian. It is the only faculty that gives idea of quality. Its whole desire is to perfect and increase quality in everything. It might have been called Perfectiveness. However, in- crease of refinement or quality is always at the expense of general or common utility. Gold is a metal of far higher quality than iron, lead or cop- per. But the general or common utility of iron, lead or copper is far greater than that of gold. Our civilization can do without ornaments er gold money, but it could not, well do without iron shovels, crowbars, axes and engines; lead bul- lets and piping ; brass articles and tinware. These things are all of general or common utility. The Alimentist seeks the deep, moist valleys. Where the soil is rich and food plenty. He cultivates the plant. The frog, the hippopotamus, the cov/, the duck and the hog are all alimentive creatures. The Idealist seeks the higher and drier country of parks and groves, v/here the air is purer and life freer. The stenches and closeness of over-populous localities seem to smother him. The deer and the swan are Ideal creatures. The material body is of general or common utility to the spiritual man. He could not work on the m^aterial plane without it. 19 Christ in his great wisdom recognized the material in- strument in the transmission of impression to the mind. He says;* 'Therefore -speak I to them in parables: because they seeing, see not : and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophesy of Esaias, which saith : By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not under- stand; and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive." Christ speaks to them in parables — PICTURES. They could see pictures even if they could not perceive principles. Pictures are pleasantly modified by each body to suit the individual character, but truths, facts, no body can modify them. Absolute truths, if seen at all, must be seen by all alike. No character-modifications nor Ignavic qualifications are given by the body to the common truth, '* water runs down hill." Whether this fact goes through the egotistic brain of an Englishman, the firm or obstinate brain of a Scotchman, the alimentive brain of a Dutchman, the ideal brain of a Frenchman, the acquisitive brain of a New England Yankee, the wondering brain of an African negro or the stunted brain of the most simple, it comes out just as it went in, without any compression or elaboration, physical qualifica- tion or modification by character. 20 THE QUALITY Quality is expressed through and by the Ignavus, the material instrument. If the mind and nature is refined the body in substance, in hair, in form, even to the nails will show it. The higher the quality the more perfect must the instrument be by which it is expressed. The Ignavus in its grades of quality resembles mineral. In its lowest grade we may compare it with clay. As we advance to iron, lead, copper, tin, silver and gold. Gold is the parallel of the highest and purest grade of bodily refine- ment. But even as an earthen vessel, by art the Ignavus is given grades of refinement, which, though exalting it to nobler uses, do not raise it above the earthy plane. Even a vessel of gold, though dedicated to most noble use may also vary in quality. It may be eighteen carats fine or not more than twelve or ten. It may, in some cases, be a mere imitation; brass, v/hich is an alloy of tin and copper, still retaining, however, the offensive smell of materialism. There is an exceedingly strange and suggestive fact, a fact which the superficialist seems never to fully comprehend, towit : That a highly refined Ignavus is always endowed with corresponding perfection of mind and personality. The more s^rmmetrical the body as a whole, the m-ore symmetrical the mind and character. This is why comparative m.easure- ments have become the principle study of criminologists. It is the key to criminology. Superior music cannot be produced upon an inferior in- strument, even by the most skillful performer, without loss of quality. Inferior music, played upon a superior instrument, by a skillful musician will be given quality, which, of itself, it does not possess. We have read and heard much about the influence of mind over matter but we find there is another important con- sideration, hidden entirely frcm the average understanding 21 and that is, the constraint of matter upon minJ. The re- flexes from the body to the mind, equal in importance the reflexes from, mind to body. Reflexes through a coarse and impure body, certainly will degrade the quality of the fine and pure ; and a body of superior fineness and purity will cer- tainly, improve the quality of the impression it transmits. For this reason care of the body is equally as important as care of the mind. The body is the house of the spiritual man. No clean spirit will v^rillingly reside in a crude, dirty and slovenly kept house » The spiritual man requires a temple for his residence, not a tenement house, indeed, *'the Spirit is the candle of the Lord. It reveals to consciousness, sooner or later, ail the foul and filthy corners of the Ignavus. There are men in the world who know, without the least consideration of faith, that an excell- ent and refined mind is the effect of an intimate and intense inspherement of the spiritual man by the material body, under the direction of expanding deteminative intelligence. By this process the material man is purged of grossness and impuri- ties and partially transmuted to perrectioa. Here is a piece of wood, a piece of lignite, a piece of soft coal, a piece of hard coal and a beau- tiful diamond. They are all the same thing — :arbon. But by transmutation, a piece of v/ood passing through the various stages of lignite, soft coal and hard coal, has a: last become a diamond, translucent and self luminous. By similar steps and under similar laws an opaque intellect is transmuted in- to a translucent one. Man in all his premises must pass through similar stages by transmutation to physical, moivjl and intellectual perfection. The coarser the stage the greater comparatively, the bulk. There is probably more heat (life) in a ton of hard coal, than in four or five cords of wood. The material is in such predomiruince in the wood. The fire princiole is but loosely insphered in the wood, •L.cfC. 22 but more intimately in the lignite, still more so in soft coal, still more so m the hard coal, and completely in the dia- mond. Ah, reach up and draw the divine principle do¥/n Into you until its shines through the body. Don't be a wooden man, and green wood at that, so when you are tried by lire, you will smoke like the fuel in the furnace, that Abraham saw in his dream, when—- ^'Lo!, an horror of great dark- ness fell upon him," When a celebrated wit spoke of people ''too green to burn," he made the utterance of his life. If you are deter- mined to remain wood, dry yourself out, by becoming dead to the egotisms, vanities, lusts and appetites of the vulgar world, so that others of refined tastes can exist near you without being smoked out. If you have made up your mind to restrain your ignavousness, your grossness and to culti- vate your Ideal faculty, you must begin with your habits. You will have to begin to accept realities as they are ; to shape your mind, so that everything that enters your brain, is not coated over with the Illusions of your personal char- acter, as an oyster coats a pebble thrown into its shell, with a varnish of pearl. Of course, stern realities, like the an- noying and irritating pebble in the oyster, are made endur- able by pearl coating. By this impearling, this coating, the rough edges are smoothed down. Reality is made beautiful by a varnish of impervious delusion — ignorance. These pearls are beautiful, it is true, but after all, the exquisite measure of their beauty exists in most cases entirely in the mind of their creator. We have ail read of the pearl of great price, But such pearls are rare, and are the creations of purely ideal miadri and may be accepted for the refine- ment they infuse into the necessary coarseness of the material life. But on general principles, bev/are of the man who thv'j.ys pebbl'^.s into your oyster. SEP 1 5 1902 21553 SEP 13 1902 xr»' The majority of minds are opaque. Some of these are superficially brilliant. They are opalescent. Brilliant, by virtue of a superficial display of colors, but the philos- ophy of the colors never penetrates the substance of the medium. The common world applauds these minds. It delights in these looking-glass minds, and their mental mir- roring. The conventional mass goes into raptures over such minds, minds that reflect everything but neither originate nor perceive anything. There is, in the world, however, a minority of minds, which by study, experience, and severe intellectual and moral discipline, have at last reached a point of perfect crys- talization, and become like the diamond translucent; minds, which, in the very interior of understanding, im.medi- ately decompose into all its primary principles, whatever thought or observation passes into them. These minds are comprehensive because they are translucent. They analyze everything into ultimates, within the interior, not upon a sur- face opaque and impenetrable, They see it as it is, while the opaque only feel it. Consider all these things, and at the same time imagine yourself, Abraham; your material man. Lot, and your spiritual man, Melchisedec ; the four kings as the four natural elements, earth, water, fire and air; the five kings as the five common senses; Abraham's trained servants as the intellectual facul- ties ; Aner, Eschol and Mamre as Unity, Order and Ac- quisition. Abraham represents the sun; Aner, Eschol and Mamre, the three fiery signs of the zodiac. Mamre, the Ram and the celestial House of Life ; Eschol, the Lion and the celestial House of Children; Aner, the Archer and the celestial House of Religion. The SUN is LORD of the LION. 24 t'H^fi mn ^[■■■iiiii! j ) ^ m ■ '''rPii ^ ' ^^^^pnffif a^K, 3 1 ■ ; ■ ' ' 1 ■ i 1 : t ' ! 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