Breakthrough

“ Why, work was the beginning and the end of everything. Reaching back to the beginnings of creation, extending clear until the last soul in heaven had passed on and through the training camp of the last hereafter, it was the thing that counted most. ”

“ It is progress to go swiftly, to send swift messages, to build new machinery. All this is a diversion of real ambition. There is only one real progress—spiritual progress. Mankind gives it a lip tribute, but presses on upon its false road of material science. ”

“ Such was the activity, industry, discipline, and perseverance in acquirement, of the mind which gave to the world its greatest physical transformer—the instrument which is changing the entire civilization of the world, “doing the work of multitudes, overcoming the difficulties of depth, distance, minuteness, magnitude, wind, and tide; exhibiting stranger wonders than those of romance or magic; annihilating time and space; giving wings even to thought, and sending knowledge like light through the human universe ”

“ I believe that the accumulated experience of mankind, and his wonderful discoveries, are of great value. I only point out that they do not constitute real progress in human nature itself, and that in the absence of any real progress these gains are external, precarious, and liable to be turned to our own destruction, as new discoveries in chemistry may easily be. ”

“ I like that word, build. New cells, new bodies even. But I'm after something more basic than that. You can change the body's structure, bruise it, burn it with the quiet brain, if you try hard enough. ”

“ I would even venture to urge that, ever since the grant to living creatures of free will, there must be, in some sense or other, a real element of contingency,—that there is no dulness about it, even to the Deity, but a constant and aspiring Effort.
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Let us trust our experience in this also. The Universe is a flux, it is a becoming, it is a progress. Evolution is a reality. True and not imaginary progress is possible. Effort is not a sham. Existence is a true adventure. There is a real risk. ”

“ ORGANIC FILAMENTS
Destruction and Creation ever proceed together; and organic filaments of the Future are even now spinning. Wonderful connection of each man with all men; and of each generation with all generations, before and after: Mankind is One. Sequence and progress of all human work, whether of creation or destruction, from age to age.—Titles, hitherto derived from Fighting, must give way to others. ”

“ It was his belief that scientific progress and technical discoveries are destined to regenerate mankind. “Every new discovery,” he wrote me once, “modifies the human brain and makes the new generation capable of receiving new ideas.” ”

“ What then will be the future progress of that wave, and how will it appear in the next chain? It will not appear there at all, for we must remember that at the close of this human evolution man finds always before him the seven paths which open the way to still further development. ”

“ All those who have not fully attained the goal, and completed their evolution, will have to resume it upon the next chain of globes, and even those who are the failures of the fifth round will be successes in the next chain. ”

“ And lately he had been feeling his way, questioning himself while all sorts of confused ideas throbbed in his brain. At first, smitten with the thought of undertaking something herculean, he had planned a genesis of the universe, in three phases or parts; the creation narrated according to science; mankind supervening at the appointed hour and playing its part in the chain of beings and events; then the future—beings constantly following one another, and finishing the creation of the world by the endless labour of life. ”

“ But in evolution a goal is not only a completion of one stage, but also the beginning of another and higher stage—on a higher plane of life with new and higher capacities and powers unimaginable from any lower plane. ”

“ If therefore we are asked whether all progress is excluded from the religion of Christ Jesus, the answer is no, assuredly, for great is the progress expected. Who indeed would be so jealous of humanity and at such enmity with God as to wish to hinder progress? But the condition is that it should be progress in reality, and not change of belief. Progress is the growth and development of each thing according to its class and its nature. ”

“ This then was it—the New World and the human creatures who were to build it, the unborn as well as those now in their cradles or tottering in their first step on the pathway leading to the place of building. ”

“ The latter perished from the continental plateaus at every upheaval, but climbed again in new hordes and reoccupied the ground after every subsidence. But just as in human history every victory or defeat urges on the progress of events, and develops the great plan of God’s providence in the elevation of man; so here every succeeding change brings in new and higher actors on the stage, and the scheme of creation moves on in a grand and steady progress towards the more varied and elevated life of the Modern World. ”

“ My ‘forced product’ as you call it, is not mine, except in so far that I have found and made use of the forces of regenerative life which are in God’s life and air and which enter into the work of all creation. ”

“ As the seed is cast into the bosom of nature in order that its energies may be called forth and its destinies accomplished, so do you cast yourselves into active life, determined in it to exercise, and by exercise to increase those mental powers that the training of the past has given you—determined that by continual accessions to your knowledge, the stream of thought shall be kept flowing constantly within you and bearing health, activity and growth into the very recesses of your being. ”

“ Science and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle—all work together. Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present. ”

“ The concept of mechanism suits the phenomena which occur within the zone of wreckage, on this shore of fixities and corpses. But life itself is rather finality, if not in the anthropomorphic sense of premeditated design, plan, or programme, at least in this sense, that it is a continually renewed effort of growth and liberation. ”

“ Is this rush of progress to remain unchecked, always? If so, what mystery, even of Omnipotent wisdom, will remain unsolved at last? What results will not human energy be able to accomplish? Is the time to come when man shall be able to shape out of clay, fashion from wood, or stone, an image of himself, and, breathing upon it, command it to walk forth a thing of life, and be obeyed? ”

“ We know as surely as we know the elementary phenomena of physics or chemistry, that the record of life upon our37 planet, though not only a record of progress by any means, has nevertheless included that to which the name of progress cannot be denied in any possible definition of the word. For myself, I understand by progress the emergence of mind, and its increasing dominance over matter. ”

“ This law of growth, progress, evolution, unfoldment, by gradual and ever ascending stages, is absolute in every department of life, and in every human accomplishment, and where it is ignored, total failure will result. ”

“ Some have climbed the ladder of progress more rapidly than others, yet each in his own body is progressing step by step.
"The decisions that we make as we gradually climb back towards our goal are a determining factor in the speed of our progress. ”

“ We know now that they are stages in a growth, and in a growth not determined by an accidental environment only, but by an original purpose, a purpose to be realized in the history of the human race as a whole. ”

“ And while we scattered pioneers and experimenters piece together our efforts into a coherent scheme, while we become more and more clearly conscious of our common purpose, year by year the old order and those who have anchylosed to the old order, die and pass away, and the unhampered children of the new time grow up about us. ”

“ This is no easy task, for the comparison not only involves the experiences of two generations, but it is like the juxtaposition of a star with the noonday sun, whose superior brilliancy obliterates the lesser light. But reverse the wheels of progress, and let us make a quick run of one hundred years into the past, and what are our experiences? Before we get to our destination we find the wheels themselves beginning to thump and jolt, and the passage becomes more difficult, more uncomfortable, and so much slower. ”

“ These fogy individuals seem to conclude that we have reached a millennium of perfection in invention. The truth is, however, that past inventions but pave the way for new discoveries -- each new invention is but the ignition of another torch to illumine the path of progress. It is, no doubt, difficult to point out the field which presents the most inviting prospect for future investigation, but we have received a letter from a correspondent who asserts that the next thing which much be accomplished is flying. ”

“ Generation after generation takes to itself the form of a body; and forth issuing from Cimmerian Night on Heaven's mission appears. What force and fire there is in each he expends, one grinding in the mill of Industry; one hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of science ”

“ And the manner of our rising to it may shape anew our lives and other lives, and determine our progress here and hereafter. From the cradle to the grave, each of us carries a sleeping energy capable of immense expansion, which wakes when the great opportunity presents itself. ”

“ From the side of what has gone before achievement settles something. From the side of what comes after, it complicates, introducing new problems, unsettling factors. There is something pitifully juvenile in the idea that "evolution," progress, means a definite sum of accomplishment which will forever stay done, and which by an exact amount lessens the amount still to be done, disposing once and for all of just so many perplexities and advancing us just so far on our road to a final stable and unperplexed goal. ”

“ Of both alike the leading characteristic is progress. In both alike do we find an upward progress from dead matter to the humbler [Pg 177] forms of vitality, and from thence to the higher. And after great cattle and beasts of the earth had, in due order, succeeded inanimate plants, sea monsters, and moving creatures that had life, the moral agent, man, enters upon the scene. Previous to his appearance on earth, each succeeding elevation in the long upward march had been a result of creation. The creative fiat went forth, and dead matter came into existence. ”

“ For to him the discovery is a triumph perhaps, but not an unexpected triumph, and never anything more marvellous than the success which crowns a long series of experiments, begun and continued, or naturally evolving to a particular end. ”

“ Development is shown to be universally characterised by progress in three forms—namely, from a simple, indefinite, incoherent state to a complex, definite, and coherent state: [Pg 9] and the wonderful scope which the universe affords, both in time and space, for historically exhibiting these traits, overwhelms the mind with a sense of the universality of evolution, in spite of the fact that all the time the very point of the question is missed in the absence of any explanation. ”

“ And this method of progression, with which the enigmatical has some affinity, is to be used, he tells us, in cases where knowledge is delivered as a thread to be spun on, where science is to be removed from one mind to another to grow from the root, and not delivered as trees for the use of the carpenter, where the root is of no consequence. ”

“ Whereupon the progress of development becomes slower and slower, and threatens to stop entirely. Then over and over again, there is the record of the advent of some fresh new force from an unexpected direction which restores youth and vigor. ”

“ The idea controlling this answer is that growth and development are in accordance with the law of the universe, and that destruction and decay are features which are only good in so far as they may be on the way to something better; as leaf-mould assists the growth of flowers, or as discords in their proper place conduce to, or prepare for, harmony. ”

“ We burst as germs into organization, we swell by a common progress into maturity, and we learn to measure by motion what we call Time, till, our motions and our time ceasing, we are thus laid side by side, generation after generation, serving as examples of a similar futurity to those who spring from us, and succeed us. ”

“ As we have begun by solidifying into distinct and independent things what were only phases—the main phases—of a continuous development, we go on materializing the development itself into lines of communication, contacts and impulsions. ”

“ Progress depends not on effort but on the proper direction of the effort. We are supposed, however, to represent one phase and that at the front rank of an inevitable advance in things human, pushed forward, as it were, by the wheel of evolution in its ceaseless progress, and bound {5} therefore to make advancement. ”

“ Each stage of development brings back the recollection of the course taken in the preceding stage, and the development has been so often repeated, that all doubt—and with all doubt, all consciousness of action—is suspended. ”

“ Substantial forces have tended to keep the pioneer spirit alive. If some resources have been depleted, other resources have been found to take their place. Scientific discovery, invention, and the development of technique have placed new forces at our command. ”

“ All force runs back into mind for its source, constant support, and uplifts into higher grades.
Mr. Grove says, "Causation is the will, creation is the act, of God." Creation is planned and inspired for the attainment of constantly rising results. The order is chaos, light, worlds, vegetable forms, animal life, then man. ”