The Hidden Power, and Other Papers upon Mental ScienceTroward, T. (Thomas)
Religion
The Hidden Power, and Other Papers upon Mental Science
Troward, T. (Thomas)
New Thought
Thus the impassioned artist and the calm thinker both find that the only
true Beauty proceeds naturally from the actual construction of that
which it expresses. It is not something added on as an afterthought, but
something pre-existing in the original idea, something to which that
idea naturally leads up, and which presupposes that idea as affording it
any _raison d'être_. The test of Beauty is, What does it express? Is it
merely a veneer, a coat of paint laid on from without? Then it is indeed
nothing but a whited sepulchre, a covering to hide the vacuity or
deformity which needs to be removed. But is it the true and natural
outcome of what is beneath the surface? Then it is the index to
superabounding Life and Love and Intelligence, which is not content with
mere utilitarianism hasting to escape at the earliest possible point
from the labour of construction, as though from an enforced and
unwelcome task, but rejoicing over its work and unwilling to quit it
until it has expressed this rejoicing in every fittest touch of form and
colour and exquisite proportion that the material will admit of, and
this without departing by a hairbreadth from the original purpose of the
design.
Wherever, therefore, we find Beauty, we may infer an enormous reserve of
Power behind it; in fact, we may look upon it as the visible expression
of the great truth that Life-Power is infinite. And when the inner
meaning of Beauty is thus revealed to us, and we learn to know it as the
very fulness and overflowing of Power, we shall find that we have
gained a new standard for the guidance of our own lives. We must begin
to use this wonderful process which we have learnt from Nature. Having
learnt how Nature works--how God works--we must begin to work in like
manner, and never consider any work complete until we have carried it to
some final outcome of Beauty, whether material, intellectual, or
spiritual. Is my intention good? That is the initial question, for the
intention determines the nature of the essence in everything. What is
the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I intend? That
is the ultimate question; for the true Beauty which our work expresses
is the measure of the Power, Intelligence, Love--in a word, of the
quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it. True
Beauty, mind you--that which is beautiful because it most perfectly
expresses the original idea, not a mere ornamentation occupying our
thoughts as a thing apart from the use intended.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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