Section 3

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the effect of an active intelligence. What then is that guiding intelligence I
The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven, to whom all the heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to have above him circling small- er stars than he. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son [doth he do this] ?
In this paragraph, we have the argument of the preceding one elaborated still further. The gods here spoken of are the heavenly bodies. Called gods, for the reason that Hermes was wiser than the later philosophers, in that he knew that all the heavenly bodies were living beings, self-conscious, having each a will of its own, each endowed with its own intelligence. He knew that they were not mechanical in their nature, but al- together different. This argument is in reality an anticipation of the Newtonian Theory of Uni- versal Gravitation, and a refutation of that ab- surd theory, for it shows that in accordance with the Newtonian Theory, the sun would be greater in its gravitative force than all the rest of the Universe combined for the reason that the great distance of the stars would so minimize their gravitative force that the sun would exercise such a gravitative force on the solar system as to make it independent of all the rest of the uni- verse. The question then is, why does not the Theory of Universal Gravitation make good in this instance! What is it that prevents the sun from doing exactly what it would do if Univer- sal Gravitation were true? There is then some other force that is superior to Gravitation, and that dispenses with the workings of Gravitation,
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whenever it suits that force to do so, which would mean that Gravitation is merely an effect pro- duced by some great cause, that ever keeps it under control. Hence Gravitation is not the ab- solute power that science has assumed it to be, but is in fact an effect produced by some other cause, and it must be an intelligent cause to be able to realize such perfect results at all times. The question is what is the nature of that cause?
Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who then is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent?
Here we have our attention called to the great dissimilarity between the courses of all of the diverse stars, and yet we are reminded of the fact that each follows its own course, and yet, while each is absolutely individual in its move- ments, there is harmony preserved among all these movements. In this way is our attention again called to the utter fallacy of the Theory of Universal Gravitation as an explanation of Physical and Mathematical Astronomy. If every body in the heavens acted upon every other body, the result would be an averaging up of all the Grayitative forces, so that a uniformity of move- ment would be the result, but the facts are that in all the heavens there are not two bodies the course of which is either equal or similar. This means that the force which directs them in their movements, must act upon each star individual- ly and entirely independently of its action upon every other body in the heavens. This of course will mean that that force is directed in all of its operations by a discriminating intelligence, to which it responds at all times. It will also indi- cate that this Intelligence is Imminent in all the operations of this force. The question then is,
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what is the nature of this force and of this guid- ing Intelligence! What is it that controls the universe? What is the Mind and Will back of, and expressing itself through every movement of the Universe? The argument from design is frightfully weak in comparison with this. We see here the clear demonstration of the perpetual operation of an immanent, intelligent, conscious, directing Will, expressing in action a very com- plicated, synthetic mentality, to which every por- tion of the universe, is individually and inces- santly responsive, and to which in spite of this individuality of its operations, the Universe as a whole, is at all times synthetically responsive. In other words, there is the perpetual activity of an intelligence capable at all times of guiding the universe as a whole and at the same time in each of its constituent parts, without ever a hitch occuring in its operations. Where can one look for such an Intelligence? It is undoubtedly not in the Material World, for it rules every portion of the material world, and the whole of it as well, hence it must be something of an Immaterial na- ture. Would not such an Intelligence and Will be quite Divine? and would it not in fact be the Manifest God? In this way does he prove the existence of the Manifest God without asserting it. He merely shows that without such a princi- ple, the Universe could not possibly be as it is, and thus there is left the mysterious X as its guiding principle.
4. The Bear up there that turneth round himself, and carries round the whole cosmos with it— Who is the owner of this instru- ment? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds? Who He who hath set on its seat the earth?
For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker
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and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without some one to measure them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure ; nay, even this is not without a Lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order.
The Bear up there that turneth round itself, and carries round the whole cosmos with it — Who is the owner of this instrument? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds? Who He who hath set on its seat the earth ?
The prevalent Astronomical Theory is that each of the stars revolves around some other star, which draws it through gravitation, but this is not true of the Constellation of the Great Bear for instance. It turns round itself, that is, it revolves around its own center of gravity. Now there is no theory of Gravitation that will account for this. If we assume that the gravitative force of the other stars controls this, we have to at- tribute to them an alterative gravitation, for if their gravitative force was continuous they would hold the Bear perfectly stationary; but if their force of Gravity is alterative, then it is not the Gravitation of Science, but merely a gravitative effect, produced by some anterior cause, which is something altogether different. The fact of the matter is that the Constellation of the Bear moves by reason of its own force, and that its path has a certain measure of curvature, that causes it to follow the path that it does, owing to no force from without, but from the ec- centricity of its own will to move. So far from being the one controlled by Gravity, it is the body
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that exercises the effect of Gravity upon all the rest of the kosmos, that is that portion of the Universe over which it exercises control, which is for us the whole kosmos. As the Bear is sub- ject to nothing in the heavens, what is the force that governs it, and that abiding in it, gives to all of its stars that common will to move in that spe- cific direction! It is without doubt a spiritual force that is immanent in the Bear and gives di- rection and purpose to all of its movements, what is its nature? Also the question is introduced as to the force that holds the sea and the earth in position. We are all familiar with the usual ans- wers that are given to these questions, but they do not go back far enough. We have already shown that Gravitation is merely an effect pro- duced by the workings of an intelligent cause, and hence we must find what principle it is that is back of Gravitation. What is the Law of Gravitation! That is the question to be settled.
For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure ; nay, even this is not without a lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order.
All those things indicated above, have come into being at some point in time. While it is true that Matter, or Hyle is eternal, it is matter in its diffused or inorganic state. Organic Matter is not eternal, but has been organized at some point in time. The forces growing out of the organized state of a material object, are not sufiici-
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ent to keep it going after its organization but they could not possibly organize the form, as they are the result of its organic operation. In other words, no body has ever been able to organize itself. As all organisms have been organized at some point in time it follows that previous to that time they did not exist. This being true, it follows that that which has organized an organ- ism, was something anterior to that organism, something different to the organism and something in its very nature inorganic. As all those things have come into being in time, they were made by something, and being made in a certain way, their making embodied certain forces that would continue to govern them, and therefore, they continue to be ruled by that which was placed in them by that which made them, therefore, that which made the organism at the time that it first came into being, forever con- tinues to rule it. Therefore, all material things have had their maker and they still have their Lord. Number, place and measure, the three in- gredients of all formation and action, are the products of something anterior to them. Measure is the course of a line of force, or a current of vibration, and it is impossible for a line of force to move anywhere without some anterior princi- ple to cause the line of force to move in the direc- tion that it does. Measure is therefore the ef- fect of an anterior cause. Place is the field in which vibration moves, and it exists not until vi- bration begins there, and hence place is the ef- fect of an anterior cause sending vibration into that field. Number is the rhythm in vibration caused by Intelligence, and hence number cannot exist except as the effect of an anterior intelli- gent causative principle producing it. Therefore, number, place and measure, must not only be originated by something, but they must be for- ever kept as they are by something apart from
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themselves. No order of any kind whatsoever can ever come into being, without a place for it to occupy, and without the measure of its opera- tions: hence, the creation of place and measure of the order are conditions precedent to the pro- duction of the order, whatever it may be. There- fore, a creative intelligence is a condition prece- dent to the coming into being of all things cre- ated. The orderless condition, is not to be taken as a merely negative state, on the contrary, it is just as positive as order itself. The lack of or- der, is the result of a force and an intelligent principle that prevents the manifestation of or- der. There being an ordering or synthesizing in- telligence in nature, it follows that this would bring order into all things were it not for the operation of an intelligence that was maintaining a state of disorder or chaos. This chaos engen- dering intelligence is therefore the cause of the lack of order wherever it may be found. Hence it becomes evident that this guiding intelligence that causes the introduction of order into the kosmos, is a discriminative intelligence which sometimes directs that order shall be introduced and at other times directs that disorder shall con- tinue. This makes the intelligent principle of the Universe more complicated than ever, and indi- cates the great importance of this mind, which is in reality the Manifest God ; in this way does na- ture reveal the Manifest God to man.
LESSON III The Manifest God.
5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised midway 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowing of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] !
Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all these beneath one sway — the motionless in motion, and the unmanifest made manifest; whereby is made this order of the cosmos and the cosmos which we see of order.
Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised mid- way 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowing of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] !
Were man removed from the environment of the earth, so that he could see the kosmos not from the point of view of the earth, but from that of an outside observer, who was in no sense in- fluenced by the earthly conditions, he would be able to see in all the manifestations of kosmic and mundane life the Manifest God. Why is the earth solid? We know that all matter is mo-
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lecular, and hence, any solid body is solid merely because of the fact that its molecules are held together in close affinity. Why is this the case? Why are the molecules composing the earth held in contact instead of being diffused? The common answer is that it is Gravitation that holds them thus. This, however, is merely evading the issue. What is Gravitation? We are told that it is the tendency for one body to attract another to it. In other words, as used in this case, Gravitation is the tendency of molecules to come into contact, and hence, to say that it is Gravitation that draws the molecules of the earth together so as to con- stitute its solidity, is equivalent to saying that the molecules are drawn into close affinity, be- cause they come into close affinity! Gravitation is supposed to be that force which causes all bodies to attract other bodies in proportion to their mass and decreasing this gravitative in- fluence with the square of the distance. But it is to be borne in mind that this earth was produced at some point in time, and hence there was a time when there was no solid earth, hence, when all of its present molecules were in a state of diffu- sion. At some point in time, these diffused mole- cules came together and in this way created the solid earth. The force that caused them to be drawn together, was of necessity a force operat- ing on the several molecules individually, and one operating anterior to the concentration of those molecules into the solid earth, seeing that it was this force which concentrated them into the solid earth. This force was therefore, not gravitation, as the term is understood by Science. Now, if a force other than the gravitation of science was capable of originating the solidity of the earth, why is it not capable of maintaining that solidity for an indefinite period of time — to-wit, so long as that solidity shall continue? If this is true, then no other force is needed
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for the purpose of maintaining that solid- ity, hence gravitation has nothing to do with the problem. In fact, there is no such thing as a Force of Gravitation or a Law of Gravitation. Gravitation is merely a phenome- non produced by this force of molecular attrac- tion that we have to consider as the solidifying force of the earth. The force that causes the molecules to move in such a way as to form the solidity of the earth, can be nothing other than the force of molecular vibration, and it must be a Centripetal Force operating among those mole- cules, and a force acting upon each one of them separately and yet producing a unity of action on the part of them all. This can only be true in the case of a polarity of vibration in the case of the several molecules. Hence we must have a duality of force, acting in such a manner as to polarize the vibration of the several molecules to the end that they assume a Centripetal motion among themselves. Thus it is evident that this is the true cause of the solidity of the earth. Then the question at once comes into mind, what is the origin of such a force? It is of necessity a force, in no sense arising from organized matter, and in fact its origin is not in the molecules them- selves, but as it directs the movements of the molecules it must be a force anterior to the exis- tence of the molecules. It can only cause the molecules to vibrate in the way that they do by acting directly on their Atoms, hence it cannot be an atomic force, but must be something existing anterior to the existence of the Atom. Its polar- ity indicates that it is both Electrical and Mag- netic and hence the force itself must act through the instrumentality of Electrons, which indicates that as a force it was in existence anterior to the existence of the Electron. Its vibration must act upon the Ion in order to make it vibrate, and hence it must act anterior to the existence of the