Scope

“ The partial action of each strong mind in one direction, is a telescope for the objects on which it is pointed. But every other part of knowledge is to be pushed to the same extravagance, ere the soul attains her due sphericity. ”

“ The agency then which has kept up and keeps up the general laws of nature, energizing at once in Sirius and on the earth, and on the earth in its primary period as well as in the nineteenth century, must be Mind, and nothing else, and Mind at least as wide and as enduring in its living action, as the immeasurable ages and spaces of the universe on which that agency has left its traces. ”

“ These degrees are opened successively in all who become regenerate: and with the opening of each degree, the individual is introduced or born into a new and higher degree of life. The lowest or natural degree is opened by simple obedience to a low or natural form of truth—the literal sense of the Word. ”

“ Now there are two departments of true celestial wisdom which man ought to seek, and into which he ought to be instructed. The one, a clear and true knowledge of God and all of his wonderful works; the other, prudence,—carefully and wisely to regulate self and all external and internal actions appertaining to the present and future life. ”

“ Implies a Plan, and that Plan embraces human Conduct.—If we suppose the supreme Being to be, not only a Creator and Ruler, but a wise and intelligent one, then we must suppose him to have some plan of operations. ”

“ The Object Lesson is designed to fill a long-felt want, and is destined, as I think, to revolutionize, in a great degree, the educational systems of our land.—In my belief, the Object Lesson will supply a want which I may safely say has heretofore left the most egregious and palpable traces of mental confusion and intellectual inadequacies stamped, as it were, upon the gleaming reasons of the most learned—the highest cultured, and the most eminently gifted and promising of our professors and scientists both at home and abroad. ”

“ Is not the one the appropriate field and province of observation,—a power habitually awake to all the perceptions and impressions of the bodily organs? and does not the other fall exclusively under the cognizance of reflection,—an operation which inverts all the ordinary habits of the understanding, abstracting the thoughts from every sensible object, and even striving to abstract them from every sensible image? ”

“ If we shall suppose an order of beings, endued with every human faculty but that of sight, how incredible would it appear to such beings, accustomed only to the slow informations of touch, that, by the addition of an organ, consisting of a ball and socket of an inch diameter they might be enabled in an instant of time, without changing their place, to perceive the disposition of a whole army, or the order of a battle, the figure of a magnificent palace, or all the variety of a landscape? ”

“ The accomplishment of your purpose now means that your experience is viewed by you as the present and conscious expression of a plan. Well, what is, precisely in so far as it is, is in the same way a whole experience finally expressing and consciously fulfilling a plan. And the Being of the real object of which you now think means a life that expresses the fulfilment of just your present plan, in the greatest measure in which your plan itself is logically capable of fulfilment. ”

“ Generally speaking, the onlooker, with his wider field of vision, regards the ultimate outcome of an activity as what it is more really doing; and the most previous agent ascertainable, being the first source of action, he regards as the most real agent in the field. ”

“ He is no doubt furnished with a few facts from observation. It is his province to interpret those facts, to inform them with life, and to infer the unknown from the known. It is thus discoveries are made which are the sublimest efforts of human genius. ”

“ Whichever groups of sensations within a soul awaken most readily, begin to speak, and give the word of command—these decide as to the general order of rank of its values, and determine ultimately its list of desirable things. ”

“ These three classes are the principals, the agents, and the operatives. The principals are in the thought of ends. They have the direction, decide what shall be done, and set the others to doing it. Thus they represent the head, and afford an illustration of the third or highest heaven whose denizens are in ends, or in the thought of ends. The agents are in the thought of means or causes. They know how the intention of the principals is to be executed. ”

“ The reverent eye which sees the vastness of the plan, the multitude of its agents, aiding and seconding it consciously and unconsciously, recognizes it, and the supreme object of its workings, Love, infinite Love. ”

“ He told his scholars that they must put up with a fraction of the universe, and a very small fraction at that--the circle reached by the senses, where sequence could be taken for granted--much as the deep-sea fish takes for granted the circle of light which he generates. "Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man." ”

“ The Maker and Ruler of the universe pursues an object, and works on a plan. His purpose is one, and he sees the end from the beginning: the variations, infinite in number, and vast in individual extent, which emerge in the details of his administration, are specific accommodations of means to ends. ”

“ Whether political, ecclesiastical, or moral, all their teaching has for its object the improvement of individual and collective Configuration—with special reference of course to the Configuration of the Circles, to which all other objects are subordinated. ”

“ The writer says, that 'by the odd numbers assigned to heaven and the even numbers assigned to earth, the changes and transformations are effected, and the spirit-like agencies kept in movement;' meaning that by means of the numbers the spirit-like lines might be formed on a scale sufficient to give a picture of all the changing phenomena, taking place, as if by a spiritual agency, in nature. ”

“ When the astronomer makes a catalogue of stars, the stars appear indifferent to the order in which their positions are set down. But when you undertake to perform any rational task, such as getting through your day’s duties, or serving your country, or growing in a sense of your relations to God, everything turns upon the order in which you do your work. ”

“ Our studies of character, to change the image, are very much like the surveyor's triangulation of a geographical province. We get a base-line in organization, always; then we get an angle by sighting some distant object to which the passions or aspirations of the subject of our observation are tending ”

“ Having, by these divisions, given an order and arrangement to our objects, we may now apply ourselves to consider, with the more accuracy, their qualities and relations. The first circumstance that strikes my eye, is the great resemblance betwixt our impressions and ideas in every other particular, except their degree of force and vivacity. ”

“ We are compelled to believe that we act, and that we ought to act, in a certain manner; we are compelled to assume a certain sphere for this action; this sphere is the real, actually present world, such as we find it. ”

“ There is a Plan, an infinite, a just, a universal Plan, to which all things, mundane or otherwise, must, in the end, conform. To keep ourselves informed as to the part that we were meant to take in this great Plan, it seems to me, should be our constant study and our constant strong desire. ”

“ This instrument of research I find to be the use, by the human person, of all the various energies of personality concentrated into one point; and the resultant spectacle of things or reality of things, which this concentrated vision makes clear, I call the original revelation of the complex vision of man. ”

“ The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the [pg 499] subjective part is the inner “state” in which the thinking comes to pass. What we think of may be enormous,—the cosmic times and spaces, for example,—whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of mind. ”

“ Those now substituted will, however, answer the purpose nearly as well, and are more directly connected with the subjects of the preceding lectures; so that I hope throughout the volume the student will perceive an insistance upon one main truth, nor lose in any minor direction of inquiry the sense of the responsibility which the acceptance of that truth fastens upon him; responsibility for choice, decisive and conclusive, between two modes of study, which involve ultimately the development, or deadening, of every power he possesses. ”

“ The objective, on the contrary, contains the foundation of its being within itself; it is in and for itself,—it is, as it is, because it is. The subjective appears as the still and passive mirror of the objective ”

“ The objective end is a theoretical organization. a logical articulation of things known, the lines of which must not be deflected by any consideration of expediency or convenience, but must run true to the canons of reality accepted at the time. These canons of reality, or of verity, have varied from time to time, have in fact varied incontinently with the passage of time and the mutations of experience. ”

“ The tangible focus of effort, the physical objective toward which the action is directed, has been observed to be an objective in space. The physical objective is always an object, be it only a geographical point, while the objective, [48] being a mental concept, is a situation to be created or maintained. ”

“ The disciplines of common life are, in great part, exercises in the relations of space, or in the mental grouping of bodies in space; and, by such exercises, the public mind is, to some extent, prepared for the reception of physical conceptions. Assuming this preparation on your part, the wish gradually grew within me to trace, and to enable you to trace, some of the more occult features and operations of Light and Colour. ”

“ In order to save time looking for objects of interest and for the purpose of correlating the various observations so that all will follow in orderly sequence, it is well for the teacher or leader to go over the ground beforehand and note the special features of interest. ”

“ For to bring in the will, or reason, as causes of their own cause, that is, as at once causes and effects, can satisfy those only who, in their pretended evidences of a God, having first demanded organization, as the sole cause and ground of intellect, will then coolly demand the pre-existence of intellect, as the cause and ground-work of organization. ”

“ The fixed disposition and modes of action, or in a word, the character, of the true Scholar, when contemplated from the highest point of view, can, properly speaking, only be described, not by any means enacted or imposed. ”

“ The search [48] for objective truth, the extension of the realm of law and regularity, the expansion and organization of the army of facts constantly marshaled and reviewed and made ready for service, the ever widening development of principles and the furthering of a deeper insight into their significance,—these are ideals for the advancement of science, far easier of expression than of execution, but the clear and accepted formulation of which itself attests a highly developed stage of accurate thought. ”

“ Space, Mass, Force are all therefore ideas which are furnished to us out of our experience as potent actors, and the recognition of this great truth provides us with the means of clearly apprehending and co-relating our conceptions of the external world, the framework of our Knowledge. ”

“ What I see to please me, perhaps I should rather say: and I shall begin with “The Diamonds,” as I think every one acquainted with my long-cherished habits will agree that I should.
In the Creation, and in the wonderful narrative of it, surely the most imposing command is—“Let there be light.” ”

“ There is no formal taking of one’s “place” or [64] “position,” no ceremonious “assigning” of “duty” or “work,” but in groups and larger companies, as well as in personal ministrations, a mutual understanding of purpose, according to adaptation. If a united or concerted action upon earth-minds for any given purpose is needed it is readily perceived and entered upon by all who are in accord, and is performed by such methods as enlightened spirits readily understand. ”

“ I say, therefore, that the consciousness of our age is the consciousness of progress; each man of any real eminence has a Mission, and he knows it; that Mission is to get the broad principles of Humanity in its entire Developments fully recognised. ”

“ We have completed the survey of the human mind; we have created a foundation, upon which a scientific system, as the correct representation of the original system in man, may be built. In conclusion, let us take a glance at the whole. ”

“ The Widening Horizon.—The reign of authority in intellectual matters lasted for twelve centuries, and then gave way gradually to the reign of observation and reason. Under the influence of the new method we have been moving generation by generation into a state of clearer discernment and into an intellectual atmosphere of wider horizon. ”

“ For, if it be reasonable to suppose and talk of faculties as distinct beings that can act, (as we do, when we say the will orders, and the will is free,) it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walking faculty, and a dancing faculty, by which these actions are produced, which are but several modes of motion; as well as we make the will and understanding to be faculties, by which the actions of choosing and perceiving are produced, which are but several modes of thinking. ”