Plane of existence

“ We must carefully investigate existence in a plane world, and then, making sure, and impressing on our inward sense, as we go, every step we take with regard to a higher world, we shall be reminded continually of fresh possibilities of our higher existence. ”

“ The subject having imposed Space as a form on the primordial non-ego, or thing in itself, and so created phenomena, this Space thereupon becomes an objective existence, independent of both the ego and the original thing in itself. ”

“ What the principle of Ground and Consequence says is, that the whole of existence is a single coherent system in which every part is determined by the nature of the whole as revealed in the complete system. ”

“ If we cannot, then, properly say that the Absolute, or the Universe,—or whatever may be our chosen name for the infinite individual which is the whole of existence,—is a self or person, can we say that the finite individuals which compose it are one and all selves, and that the Absolute is therefore a society of selves? ”

“ Under those conditions—so barely escaped from—how wretchedly meagre and limited would have been our conception of the Universe! Aye, and, unless we foolishly imagine that our circumstances are such as to have already given us a clue to every kind of possible existence, I venture to say that "wretchedly meagre and limited" must be a true description of our conception of the Universe, even now,—even of the conception of those who have permitted themselves, with least hesitation, to follow whithersoever facts lead. ”

“ In the midst of uniformities of nature, moving at will on the plane of natural necessities, weaving the pattern of its ideas through the warp of natural laws, runs the personal life. On the same plane and amid these uniformities, yet itself a sphere of being of another order ”

“ Hence the idea of a general order of nature, everywhere the same, hovering over life and over matter alike. Hence our habit of designating by the same word and representing in the same way the existence of laws in the domain of inert matter and that of genera in the domain of life. ”

“ The great Second Hermetic Principle embodies the truth that there is a harmony, agreement, and correspondence between the several planes of Manifestation, Life and Being. This truth is a truth because all that is included in the Universe emanates from the same source, and the same laws, principles, and characteristics apply to each unit, or combination of units, of activity, as each manifests its own phenomena upon its own plane. ”

“ His experience in the new sphere will be a continuation of his experience in the old one; for there is a law by which we judge of the future by the past. This law is one of the conditions of our intellectual existence; an inevitable habit of our minds ”

“ Is the sole actual existence "the structure which, under like conditions, again evolves like combinations"? Must he find himself under like conditions which will again evolve like combinations of ideas in passing trains of consciousness, before he can bring forth from the store-house of his mind the pre-existing thing that lies within it? ”

“ It is perfectly correct thinking to reason that these qualities, whose phenomenal manifestations, in the case of man, show that in him they exist only in a limited degree, may exist in another being in unlimited perfection and without degree. Our minds are so constituted that we reason from the finite to the infinite, by observing that one class of phenomena evince the existence of the finite and another class of phenomena evince the existence of the infinite. ”

“ In this enumeration of the forms which compose the world in space, we have delineated them as possessing an actual existence, and not as objects of intellectual contemplation, or as mere links of a mental and causal chain of connection. ”

“ Pass from this illustration of the idea of human creation to the hypothesis of a supreme being, possessing infinite power, and existing before the material universe began. The hypothesis of his existence includes the power to call into being things that had no previous being, whether these things be matter and material properties or moral and intellectual ideas. ”

“ Further, we saw that all subordinate reality is again in its degree individual, and that the contents of the Absolute thus form a hierarchy of ascending orders of reality and individuality, and that in this way, while all finite individual existence is, as finite, appearance and not ultimate Reality, appearances, themselves are of varied degrees of worth, and that, apart from the appearances, there is no reality at all. ”

“ In the preceding chapter we have very briefly indicated the nature of the steps by which reflective thought comes to distinguish sharply between a physical and a psychical order of existence. The physical order, when the concept has been brought into its complete shape by the inclusion of my own body and all its parts, is thought of as a system comprising all the bodies in the universe, that is, all the existences which are of the same kind as those which I directly perceive by means of the special senses. ”

“ Supposing, then, our physical explanations to have reached their highest limits by resolving all modes of Existence into one mode—force, matter, life, and mind, being shown but different manifestations of the same Infinite Existence—the final mystery of things would then become resolved into the simple question, Why is there Existence?—Why is there not Nothing? ”

“ This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty.
That every being not infinite, compared with infinity, must be imperfect, is evident to intuition; that, whatever is imperfect must have a certain line which it cannot pass, is equally certain. ”

“ If we contemplate the world and the creatures it contains we shall recognize a perfect order, a regular [152] system, a sequence of cause and effect, a connexion between different categories of existence, and a transformation of beings from one category of existence to another. ”

“ That is the characteristic note of life in general, and at the same time of life as it actually is, life as seen in the world. This, it is true, is life in itself, inner conformity to an end; but it means that each kind or species of life represents a very narrow sphere, and has a very limited nature. ”

“ By the term world, however, we understand the aggregate of material things, the collection merely of that infinite number of existing things which are actually visible, and each of which is, to begin with, conceived of as existing for itself. The world embraces men equally with natural things. When the world is thus taken as an aggregate, and even as an aggregate merely of natural things, it is not conceived of as Nature, by which we understand something which is in itself a systematic Whole, a system of arrangements and gradations, and particularly of laws. ”

“ Returning now from this brief excursion into the social status, to the problem as related to the mental, moral, and physical health of individuals, and bearing in mind our Modulus of Man, and Theorem of Constructive Psychology, we find the annals of Spiritualism, Mediumship, or subjective control, of exceeding importance.
Another plane of life exists. Individuals on either plane communicate with the controlling entity on the supra-physical plane.
The Medium is invariably subjective and controlled. ”

“ In connection with this mention of Nature regarded in reference to the several characteristics which we have to treat of in the course of our investigation, we may mention, by way of preface, that it does indeed appear in this shape as the totality of external existence, but at the same time as one of those characteristics above which we are to raise ourselves. ”

“ We see trees, houses, fields, living beings in our own shape, and in shapes more or less analogous to our own. These are perpetually changing the mode of their existence relatively to us. To express the varieties of these modes, we say, we move, they move; and as this motion is continual, though not uniform, we express our conception of the diversities of its course by—it has been, it is, it shall be. These diversities are events or objects, and are essential, considered relatively to human identity, for the existence of the human mind. ”

“ You think yourself the perfection of existence, while you are in reality the most imperfect and imbecile. You profess to see, whereas you can see nothing but a Point! You plume yourself on inferring the existence of a Straight Line; but I can see Straight Lines and infer the existence of Angles, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and even Circles. ”

“ That which endures is not one or other association of living forms, but the process of which the Cosmos is the product and of which these are among the transitory expressions. And in the living world, one of the most characteristic features of this cosmic process is the struggle for existence, the competition of each with all, the result of which is the selection, that is to say, the survival of those forms which, on the whole, are best adapted to the conditions which at any period obtain ”

“ The complement of this first principle is the proposition that no thing is annihilated, but all existences are resolved into their ultimate elements. As the first is a necessary inference from the existence of universal order, the second is proved by the perpetuity of creation and the observed transformation of things into one another. ”

“ Thus has arisen a theory of the division of existence into 195two great orders, the physical and the psychical, which so dominates our ordinary thought about the world, that all the efforts of philosophers, both spiritualist and materialist, to reduce the two orders once more to one seem powerless to make any impression on the great majority of minds. ”

“ Who then can define the precise point, in the scale of elementary existence, which divides between the physical and spiritual kingdoms? There are eyes which can discern the most refined particles of elementary existence. There are hands and fingers to whose refined touch all things are tangible. ”

“ But you maintain perhaps that "these beliefs are not beliefs, but knowledge based on the uniformity of the laws of nature; you know that the laws of nature are uniform, and therefore you knew that your razor would shave." But how, I ask, do you know that the laws of nature are uniform? "By the experience of mankind during many thousands of years." But how do you know that what has been in the past will be in the future—will be in the next instant? "Well, if a law of nature were broken—say, for example, the law of gravitation—the whole Universe would fall to pieces." ”

“ What has not life—inorganic Nature, the sun, the stars—stands in an essential and direct relation to what has life, and to Man in so far as he in a measure belongs to living Nature, and partly because he sets particular ends before himself. This finite conformity to an end is found in Man. ”

“ The world of phenomena is conceived at any stage in the simplest form, and the reality that we accept is for us at any time the simplest description of the phenomena as known to us. To put this view in our own way, we might say that the world is scientifically viewed as a perfectly united whole, which would, if fully known, fully satisfy our highest mental desire for continuity and perfect regularity of conception. ”

“ Evolution is to be conceived of as a continuous pushing back of the boundary between representation and reality, or as a conquest of space. We may conceive of space as of an infinite number of dimensions, and of consciousness as a moving—or rather as an expanding—point, embracing this infinity, involving worlds, powers, knowledges, felicities, within itself in everlasting progression. ”

“ This combination of intelligence with existence we may suppose to have existed from eternity. At the creation we may suppose that a portion of the Eon was separated from the intelligence, and it was ordained—it became a natural law—that it should have the properties of gravitation, etc.—that is, that it should give to man the ideas of those properties. ”

“ Survey our life, consider our experience. Look at nature as we men find it. Take account of our temporal and spatial universe. Review the results of our science. In all this you will discover manifold meanings relatively obtained, manifold interrelationships binding together facts that at first sight appear sundered, universality predetermining what had seemed accidental, and a vast fundamental ontological unity linking in its deathless embrace past, present, future, and what for us seem to be the merely possible forms of Being. ”

“ As seen, nature and its laws would appear to us very different from what we find them now, with our present time perception.
Thus philosophy, mathematics, and physical science agree that space and time cannot be entities, but are conceptions of the human mind in its relation to nature. ”

“ When God, by his omnipotent voice, spoke the earth into existence, as an individual planet, it contained exactly the same elements of which it is now composed; but they were simply in elemental form, without organization, and, consequently, without variety of manifestation in form; motion being an inherent quality, constant agitation brought the elements into relations and combinations, simple at first; but by constant change they arose from the simple to the complex, and from the complex toward the infinite, and in the sum total of them we have the living present. ”

“ We may therefore feel it to be an almost certain conclusion that—the elements being the same, the laws which act upon, and combine, and modify those elements being the same—organised living beings wherever they may exist in this universe must be, fundamentally, and in essential nature, the same also. ”