The Doré Lectures: Being Sunday addresses at the Doré Gallery, London, given in connection with the Higher Thought CentreTroward, T. (Thomas)
Religion
The Doré Lectures: Being Sunday addresses at the Doré Gallery, London, given in connection with the Higher Thought Centre
Troward, T. (Thomas)
New Thought
would cancel each other and the result would be zero. The fact,
therefore, of our own existence is a sufficient proof of the
singleness and goodness of the Originating Power, and from this
starting-point there is no second power to be taken into
consideration, and consequently we do not have to study the evil
that may arise out of existing or future circumstances, but
require to keep our minds fixed only upon the good which we
intend to create. There is a very simple reason for this. It is
that every new creation necessarily carries its own law with it
and by that law produces new conditions of its own. A balloon
affords a familiar illustration of my meaning. The balloon with
its freight weighs several hundredweight, yet the introduction of
a new factor, the gas, brings with it a law of its own which
entirely alters the conditions, and the force of gravity is so
completely overcome that the whole mass rises into the air. The
Law itself is never altered, but we have previously known it only
under limiting conditions. These conditions, however, are no part
of the Law itself; and a clearer realization of the Law shows us
that it contains in itself the power of transcending them. The
law which every new creation carries with it is therefore not a
contradiction of the old law but its specialization into a higher
mode of action.
Now the ultimate Law is that of production ex nihilo by the
movement of the Spirit within itself, and all subordinate laws
are merely the measurements of the relations which spontaneously
arise between different things when they are brought into
manifestation, arid therefore, if an entirely new thing is
created it must necessarily establish entirely new relations and
so produce entirely new laws. This is the reason why, if we take
the action of pure unmanifested Spirit as our starting-point, we
may confidently trust it to produce manifestations of law which,
though perfectly new from the stand-point of our past experience,
are quite as natural in their own way as any that have gone
before. It is on this account that in these addresses I lay so
much stress on the fact that Spirit creates ex nihilo, that is,
out of no pre-existing forms, but simply by its own movement
within itself. If, then, this idea is clearly grasped, it
logically follows from it that the Root of Life is not to be
found in the comparison of good and evil, but in the simple
affirmation of the Spirit as the All-creating power of Good. And
since, as we have already seen, this same all-creating Spirit
finds a centre and fresh starting-point of operation in our own
minds, we can trust it to follow the Law of its own being there
as much as in the creation of the cosmos.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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