<.«°«* ¥j: $P^ *SMk ** < 5, «- ^K^ V "Si :'^K* : o : ilflil" : "Si =S - * a^an: fting of g£m&, TBodp anD Circumstance BOOKS BY JAMES ALLEN The Mastery of Destiny Above Life's Turmoil Byways of Blessedness From Poverty to Power All These Things Added The Life Triumphant Poems of Peace From Passion to Peace Asa Man Thinketh Out from the Heart Through the Gate of Good Man King of Mind, Body, and Circumstance VVKV =z- Uing of Sr^inti, 2$oop, ano Circumstance BY JAMES ALLEN AUTHOR OF U AS A MAN THINKETH," "FROM PASSION TO peace," &c. NEW YORK €fjomag $. CrotoeH K €o. "^ <^=%-^ 7^ ^ COPYRIGHT, 19II, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. Published April, 1 9 1 1 ,^l<^ A COMPOSITION AND ELECTROTYPE PLATES BY D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON ©.CLA286526 i Within, around, above, below, The primal forces burn and brood. Awaiting wisdom's guidance; lot All their material is good: Evil subsists in their abuse ; Good, in their wise and lawful use. a THE problem of life consists in learn- ing how to live. It is like the problem of addition or subtra&ion to the school- boy. When mastered, all difficulty disap- pears, and the problem has vanished. All the problems of life, whether they be social, political, or religious, subsist in ignorance and wrong-living. As they are solved in the heart of each individual, they will be solved in the mass of men. Humanity at present is in the painful stage of "learning/ ' It is con- fronted with the difficulties of its own igno- rance. As men learn to live rightly, learn to diredt their forces and use their functions and faculties by the light of wisdom, the sum of life will be corre&ly done, and its mastery will put an end to all the "problems of evil." To the wise, all such problems have ceased. James Allen Bryngoleu Ilfracombe, England Contents PAGE THE INNER WORLD OF THOUGHTS i THE OUTER WORLD OF THINGS IO habit: ITS SLAVERY AND ITS FREEDOM 19 BODILY CONDITIONS zy POVERTY 40 man's spiritual dominion 49 conquest: not resignation 53 King of S^inO, lBoDp, anD Circumstance ♦ ♦ ♦ Cfce 3(nnet C23oriD of Cfcougfcts MAN is the maker of happiness and misery. Further, he is the creator and perpetuator of his own happiness and misery. These things are not externally im- posed; they are internal conditions. Their cause is neither deity, nor devil, nor circum- stance, but thought. They are the efFedts of deeds, and deeds are the visible side of thoughts. Fixed attitudes of mind deter- mine courses of conduct, and from courses of condu6l come those reactions called hap- piness and unhappiness. This being so, it fol- lows that, to alter the rea&ive condition, one must alter the a&ive thought. To exchange misery for happiness, it is necessary to re- verse the fixed attitude of mind and habit- ual course of condudl which is the cause of [ « ] a^an : tog of Q^mD misery, and the reverse effed will appear in the mind and life. A man has no power to be happy while thinkingand ading selfishly; he cannot be unhappy while thinking and ading unselfishly. Wheresoever the cause is, there the effed will appear. Man cannot abrogate effeds, but he can alter causes. He can purify his nature; he can remould his character. There is great power in self-con- quest; there is great joy in transforming one- self. Each man is circumscribed by his own thoughts, but he can gradually extend their circle; he can enlarge and elevate his men- tal sphere. He can leave the low, and reach up to the high ; he can refrain from harbour- ing thoughts that are dark and hateful, and can cherish thoughts that are bright and beautiful ; and as he does this, he will pass into a higher sphere of power and beauty, will become conscious of a more complete and perfed world. For men live in spheres low or high [ *] TBoDp ano Circumstance according to the nature of their thoughts. Their world is as dark and narrow as they conceive it to be, as expansive and glorious as their comprehensive capacity. Everything around them is tinged with the colour of their thoughts. Consider the man whose mind is suspi- cious, covetous, envious. How small and mean and drear everything appears to him. Having no grandeur in himself, he sees no grandeur anywhere ; being ignoble himself, he is incapable of seeing nobility in any be- ing. Even his god is a covetous being that can be bribed, and he judges all men and women to be just as petty and selfish as he himself is, so that he sees in the most exalted ads of unselfishness only motives that are mean and base. Consider again the man whose mind is un- suspecting, generous, magnanimous. How wondrous and beautiful is his world. He is conscious of some kind of nobility in all crea- tures and beings. He sees men as true, and [3] to him they are true. In his presence the meanest forget their nature, and for the mo- ment become like himself,gettinga glimpse, albeit confused, in that temporary uplift- ment, of a higher order of things, of an im- measurably nobler and happier life. That small-minded man and this large- hearted man live in two different worlds, though they be neighbours. Their con- sciousness embraces totally different prin- ciples. Their adions are each the reverse of the other. Their moral insight is contrary. They each look out upon a different order of things. Their mental spheres are sepa- rate, and, like two detached circles, they never mingle. The one is in hell, the other in heaven, as truly as they will ever be, and death will not place a greater gulf between them than already exists. To the one, the world is a den of thieves; to the other, it is the dwelling-place of gods. The one keeps a revolver handy, and is always on his guard against being robbed or cheated (uncon- [4 ] TBoDp anD Circum0tance scious of the fa& that he is all the time rob- bing and cheating himself), the other keeps ready a banquet for the best. He throws open his doors to talent, beauty, genius, goodness. His friends are of the aristocracy of chara&er. They have become a part of himself. They are in his sphere of thought, his world of consciousness. From his heart pours forth nobility, and it returns to him tenfold in the multitude of those who love him and do him honour. The natural grades in human society — what are they but spheres of thought, and modes of condudt manifesting those spheres ? The proletariat may rail against these divi- sions, but he will not alter or affedl them. There is no artificial remedy for equalizing states of thought having no natural affinity, and separated by the fundamental princi- ples of life. The lawless and the law-abid- ing are eternally apart, nor is it hatred nor pride that separates them, but states of in- telligence and modes of condud which in [5] 60an; I&mgof^mD the moral principles of things stand mutu- ally unrelated. The rude and ill-mannered are shut out from the circle of the gentle and refined by the impassable wall of their own mentality which, though they may remove by patient self-improvement, they can never scale by a vulgar intrusion. The kingdom of heaven is not taken by violence, but he who conforms to its principles receives the password. The ruffian moves in a soci- ety of ruffians; the saint is one of an eleft brethren whose communion is divine music. All men are mirrors reflecting according to their own surface. All men, looking at the world of men and things, are looking into a mirror which gives back their own reflec- tion. Each man moves in the limited or ex- pansive circle of his own thoughts, and all outside that circle is non-existent to him. He only knows that which he has become. The narrower the boundary, the more con- vinced is the man that there is no further [6] TBoDp ann Circumstance limit, no other circle. The lesser cannot con- tain the greater, and he has no means of ap- prehending the larger minds; such know- ledge comes only by growth. The man who moves in a widely extended circle of thought knows all the lesser circles from which he has emerged, for in the larger experience all lesser experiences are contained and pre- served; and when his circle impinges upon the sphere of perfect manhood, when he is fitting himself for company and commun- ion with them of blameless condudt and profound understanding, then his wisdom will have become sufficient to convince him that there are wider circles still beyond of which he is as yet but dimly conscious, or is entirely ignorant. Men, like schoolboys, find themselves in standards or classes to which their igno- rance or knowledge entitles them. The cur- riculum of the sixth standard is a mystery to the boy in the first ; it is outside and be- yond the circle of his comprehension; but [ 7] he reaches it by persistent effort and patient growth in learning. By mastering and out- growing all the standards between, he comes at last to the sixth, and makes its learning his own; and beyond still is the sphere of the teacher. So in life, men whose deeds are dark and selfish, full of passion and per- sonal desire, cannot comprehend those whose deeds are bright and unselfish, whose minds are calm, deep, and pure, but they can reach this higher standard, this enlarged consciousness, by effort in right-doing, by growth in thought and moral comprehen- sion. And above and beyond all lower and higher standards stand the Teachers of man- kind, the Cosmic Masters, the Saviours of the world whom the adherents of the various religions worship. There are grades in teach- ers as in pupils, and some there are who have not yet reached the rank and position of Master^ yet, by the sterling morality of their character, are guides and teachers; but to occupy a pulpit or rostrum does not make [8] IBoDp ano Ctrcum0tance a man a teacher. A man is constituted a teacher by virtue of that moral greatness which calls forth the resped: and reverence of mankind. Each man is as low or high, as little or great, as base or noble, as his thoughts; no more, no less. Each moves within the sphere of his own thoughts, and that sphere is his world. In that world in which he forms his habits of thought, he finds his company. He dwells in the region which harmonizes with his particular growth. But he need not perforce remain in the lower worlds. He can lift his thoughts and ascend. He can pass above and beyond into higher realms, into happier habitations. When he chooses and wills he can break the carapace of selfish thought, and breathe the purer airs of a more expansive life. [9] Cfce ©titer mo rio of Cfcinp THE world of things is the other half of the world of thoughts. The inner in- forms the outer. The greater embraces the lesser. Matter is the counterpart of mind. Events are streams of thought. Circum- stances are combinations of thought, and the outer conditions and adlions of others in which each man is involved are intimately related to his own mental needs and devel- opment. Man is a part of his surroundings. He is not separate from his fellows, but is bound closely to them by the peculiar inti- macy and interaction of deeds, and by those fundamental laws of thought which are the roots of human society. One cannot alter external things to suit his passing whims and wishes, but he can set aside his whims and wishes; he can so alter his attitude of mind towards externals that they will assume a different aspe6l. He can- not mould the aftions of others towards him, [ 10 j Span: ffitfngof^mD but he can rightly fashion his adions towards them. He cannot break down the wall of cir- cumstance by which he is surrounded, but he can wisely adapt himself to it, or find the way out into enlarged circumstances by ex- tending his mental horizon. Things follow thoughts. Alter your thoughts, and things will receive a new adjustment. To refled truly, the mirror must be true. A warped glass gives back an exaggerated image. A disturbed mind gives a distorted refledion of the world. Subdue the mind, organize and tranquilize it, and a more beautiful image of the universe, a more perfed perception of the world-order, will be the result. Man has all power within the world of his own mind, to purify and perfed it, but his power in the outer world of other minds is subjed and limited. This is made plain when we refled that each finds himself in a world of men and things, a unit amongst myriads of similar units. These units do not ad independently and despotically, but re- [ " i Q0an; ftUng; ofa^tnti sponsively and sympathetically. My fellow- men are involved in my adions, and they will deal with them. If what I do be a menace to them, they will adopt protedive measures against me. As the human body expels its morbid atoms, so the body politic instinc- tively expurgates its recalcitrant members. Your wrong ads are so many wounds in- flided on this body politic, and the healing of its wounds will be your pain and sorrow. This ethical cause and effed is not differ- ent from that physical cause and effed with which the simplest is acquainted. It is but an extension of the same law; its applica- tion to the larger body of humanity. No ad is aloof. Your most secret deed is invisibly reported, its good being proteded in joy, its evil destroyed in pain. There is a great ethical truth in the old fable of "the Book of Life," in which every thought and deed is recorded and judged. It is because of this — that your deed belongs, not alone to your- self, but to humanity and the universe — [ i2 ] TBoOp anD Circumstance that you are powerless to avert external ef- fects, but are all-powerful to modify and cor- rect internal causes ; and it is also because of this that the perfe&ing of one's own deeds is man's highest duty and most sublime accomplishment. The obverse of this truth — that you are powerless to obviate external things and deeds — is, that external things and deeds are powerless to injure you. The cause of your bondage as of your deliverance is with- in. The injury that comes to you through others is the rebound of your own deed, the reflex of your own mental attitude. They are the instruments, you are the cause. Destiny is ripened deeds. The fruit of life, both bit- ter and sweet, is received by each man in just measure. The righteous man is free. None can injure him; none can destroy him; none can rob him of his peace. His attitude towards men, born of understanding, disarms their power to wound him. Any injury which they may try to inflid:, rebounds upon themselves [ '3 ] 99an: J&tng of^inD to their own hurt, leaving him unharmed and untouched. The good that goes from him is his perennial fount of happiness, his eternal source of strength. Its root is seren- ity, its flower is joy. The harm which a man sees in the adion of another towards him — say, for instance, an ad of slander — is not in the ad: itself, but in his attitude of mind towards it; the injury and unhappiness are created by him- self, and subsist in his lack of understanding concerning the nature and power of deeds. He thinks the ad can permanently injure or ruin his charader, whereas it is utterly void of any such power; the reality being that the deed can only injure or ruin the doer of it. Thinking himself injured, the man becomes agitated and unhappy, and takes great pains to counteradthe supposed harm to himself, and these very pains give the slander an appearance of truth, and aid rather than hinder it. All his agitation and unrest is created by his reception of the deed, [ H] lBotip and Circumstance and not a&ually by the deed itself. The righteous man has proved this by the fad: that the same a& has ceased to arouse in him any disturbance. He understands, and there- fore ignores it. It belongs to a sphere which he has ceased to inhabit, to a region of con- sciousness with which he has no longer any affinity. He does not receive the a6t into himself, the thought of injury to himself be- ing absent. He lives above the mental dark- ness in which such a6ts thrive, and they can no more injure or disturb him than a boy can injure or divert the sun by throwing stones at it. It was to emphasize this that Buddha, to the end of his days, never ceased to tell his disciples that so long as the thought "I have been injured/' or "I have been cheated," or "I have been insulted," could arise in a man's mind, he had not compre- hended the Truth. And as with the condudt of others, so is it with external things — with surroundings and circumstances — in themselves they are [ '5 ] Q^an: King of C^mD neither good nor bad, it is the mental atti- tude and state of heart that makes them so. A man imagines he could do great things if he were not hampered by circumstances — by want of money, want of time, want of influence, and want of freedom from family ties. In reality the man is not hindered by these things at all. He, in his mind, ascribes to them a power which they do not possess, and he submits, not to them, but to his opinion about them, that is, to a weak ele- ment in his nature. The real "want" that hampers him is the want of the right atti- tude of mind. When he regards his circum- stances as spurs to his resources, when he sees that his so-called "drawbacks" are the very steps up which he is to mount success- fully to his achievement, then his necessity gives birth to invention, and the "hin- drances" are transformed into aids. The man is the all-important fa&or. If his mind be wholesome and rightly tuned, he will not whine and whimper over his circumstances, [ 16] TBoOp anD Circum0tance but will rise up, and outgrow them. He who complains of his circumstances has not yet become a man, and Necessity will continue to prick and lash him till he rises into man- hood's strength, and then she will submit to him. Circumstance is a severe taskmaster to the weak, an obedient servant to the strong. It is not external things, but our thoughts about them, that bind us or set us free. We forge our own chains, build our own dungeons, take ourselves prisoners; or we loose our bonds, build our own palaces, or roam in freedom through all scenes and events. If I think that my surroundings are powerful to bind me, that thought will keep me bound. If I think that, in my thought and life, I can rise above my surroundings, that thought will liberate me. One should ask of his thoughts, "Are they leading to bondage or deliverance?" and he should abandon thoughts that bind, and adopt thoughts that set free. If we fear our fellow-men, fear opinion,, [ 17 ] 90an; i&tng; of Q^mD poverty, the withdrawal of friends and influ- ence, then we are bound indeed, and cannot know the inward happiness of the enlight- ened, the freedom of the just; but if in our thoughts we are pure and free, if we see in life's reactions and reverses nothing to cause us trouble or fear, but everything to aid us in our progress, nothing remains that can prevent us from accomplishing the aims of our life, for then we are free indeed. [ '8 ] i£atnt; its flatter? anD its jfreeoom MAN is subject to the law of habit. Is he then free? Yes, he is free. Man did not make life and its laws; they are eternal; he finds himself involved in them, and he can understand and obey them. Man's power does not enable him to make laws of being; it subsists in discrimination and choice. Man does not create one jot of the universal conditions or laws; they are the essential principles of things, and are neither made nor unmade. He discovers, not makes, them. Ignorance of them is at the root of the world's pain. To defy them is folly and bondage. Who is the freer man, the thief who defies the laws of his country, or the honest citizen who obeys them ? Who, again, is the freer man, the fool who thinks he can live as he likes, or the wise man who chooses to do only that which is right? Man is, in the nature of things, a being of habit, and this he cannot alter; but he [ 19 j a9an: EmgofcpmD can alter his habits. He cannot alter the law of his nature, but he can adapt his nature to the law. No man wishes to alter the law of gravitation, but all men adapt themselves to it; they use it by bending to it, not by defying or ignoring it. Men do not run up against walls or jump over precipices in the hope that this law will alter for them. They walk alongside walls, and keep clear of pre- cipices. Man can no more get outside the law of habit, than he can get outside the law of gravitation, but he can employ it wisely or unwisely. As scientists and inventors mas- ter the physical forces and laws by obeying and using them, so wise men master the spiritual forces and laws in the same way. While the bad man is the whipped slave of habit, the good man is its wise director and master. Not its maker , let me reiterate, nor yet its arbitrary commander, but its self-disciplined user, its master by virtue of knowledge grounded on obedience. He is [ 20] IBoDp anD Circum0tance the bad man whose habits of thought and a&ion are bad. He is the good man whose habits of thought and a&ion are good. The bad man becomes the good man by trans- forming or transmuting his habits. He does not alter the law; he alters himself; he adapts himself to the law. Instead of submitting to selfish indulgences, he obeys moral princi- ples. He becomes the master of the lower by enlisting in the service of the higher. The law of habit remains the same, but he is changed from bad to good by his read- justment to the law. Habit is repetition. Man repeats the same thoughts, the same a&ions, the same expe- riences over and over again until they are incorporated with his being, until they are built into his character as part of himself. Faculty is fixed habit. Evolution is mental accumulation. Man, to-day, is the result of millions of repetitious thoughts and afts. He is not ready-made, he becomes, and is still becoming. His character is predeter- [ 2i ] et9an: filing of^mO mined by his own choice. The thought, the ad, which he chooses, that, by habit, he becomes. Thus each man is an accumulation of thoughts and deeds. The characteristics which he manifests instinctively and with- out effort are lines of thought and a6tion become, by long repetition, automatic; for it is the nature of habit to become, at last, unconscious, to repeat, as it were, itself with- out any apparent choice or effort on the part of its possessor; and in due time it takes such complete possession of the individual as to appear to render his will powerless to counteract it. This is the case with all habits, whether good or bad; when bad, the man is spoken of as being the cc victim" of a bad habit or a vicious mind; when good, he is referred to as having, by nature, a "good disposition." All men are, and will continue to be, sub- ject to their own habits, whether they be good or bad — that is, subject to their own [ « ] TBoDp anD Circumstance reiterated and accumulated thoughts and deeds. Knowing this, the wise man chooses to subjedt himself to good habits, for such service is joy, bliss, and freedom; while to become subjedl to bad habits is misery, wretchedness, slavery* This law of habit is beneficent, for while it enables a man to bind himself to the chains of slavish pradlices, it enables him to be- come so fixed in good courses as to do them unconsciously, to do instinctively that which is right, without restraint or exertion, and in perfed happiness and freedom. Observ- ing this automatism in life, men have denied the existence of will or freedom on man's part. They speak of him as being "born" good or bad, and regard him as the helpless instrument of blind forces. It is true that man is the instrument of mental forces, — or to be more accurate, he is those forces, — but they are not blind, and he can diredl them, and rediredt them into new channels. In a word, he can take him- [ *3 ] self in hand and reconstruct his habits; for though it is also true that he is born with a given character, that character is the pro- dud of numberless lives during which it has been slowly built up by choice and effort, and in this life it will be considerably modi- fied by new experiences. No matter how apparently helpless a man has become under the tyranny of a bad habit, or a bad characteristic, — and they are essentially the same, — he can, so long as sanity remains, break away from it and be- come free, replacing it by its opposite good habit ; and when the good possesses him as the bad formerly did, there will be neither wish nor need to break from that, for its dominance will be perennial happiness, and not perpetual misery. That which a man has formed within himself, he can break up and re-form when he so wishes and wills; and a man does not wish to abandon a bad habit so long as he regards it as pleasurable. It is when it [ 24] TBoDp ano Citcum0tance assumes a painful tyranny over him that he begins to look for a way of escape, and finally abandons the bad for something better. No man is helplessly bound. The very law by which he has become a self-bound slave will enable him to become a self- emancipated master. To know this, he has but to aft upon it, — that is, deliberately and strenuously to abandon the old lines of thought and conduft, and diligently fashion new and better lines. That he may not ac- complish this in a day, a week, a month, a year, or five years, should not dishearten and dismay him. Time is required for the new repetitions to become established, and the old ones to be broken up; but the law of habit is certain and infallible, and a line of effort patiently pursued and never aban- doned, is sure to be crowned with success ; for if a bad condition, a mere negation, can become fixed and firm, how much more surely can a good condition, a positive prin- c 25 ] span: fcmgofSpnO ciple, become established and powerful ! A man is powerless to overcome the wrong and unhappy elements in himself only so long as he regards himself as 'powerless. If to the bad habit is added the thought, "I can- not/ 1 the bad habit will remain. Nothing can be overcome till the thought of power- lessness is uprooted and abolished from the mind. The great stumbling-block is not the habit itself, it is the belief in the impossibility of overcoming it. How can a man overcome a bad habit so long as he is convinced that it is impossible? How can a man be pre- vented from overcoming it when he knows that he can, and is determined to do it? The dominant thought by which man has enslaved himself is the thought, "I cannot overcome my sins." Bring this thought out into the light, in all its nakedness, and it is seen to be a belief in the power of evil, with its other pole, disbelief in the power of good. For a man to say, or believe, that he cannot rise above wrong-thinking and [ * ] IBoDp anD Circumstance wrong-doing, is to submit to evil, is to aban- don and renounce good. By such thoughts, such beliefs, man binds himself; by their opposite thoughts, opposite beliefs, he sets himself free. A changed attitude of mind changes the char- acter, the habits, the life. Man is his own deliverer. He has brought about his thral- dom; he can bring about his emancipation. All through the ages he has looked, and is still looking, for an external deliverer, but he still remains bound. The Great Deliv- erer is within; He is the Spirit of Truth; and the Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Good ; and he is in the Spirit of Good who dwells habitually in good thoughts and their efFe&s, good a&ions. _Man is not bound by any power outside his own wrong thoughts, and from these he can set himself free; and foremost, the enslaving thoughts from which he needs to be delivered are — "I cannot rise," "I cannot break away from bad habits," "I [ 27 ] cannot alter my nature/' "I cannot control and conquer myself/' "I cannot cease from sin." All these "cannots" have no existence in the things to which they submit; they exist only in thought. Such negations are bad thought-habits which need to be eradicated, and in their place should be planted the positive "I can," which should be tended and devel- oped until it becomes a powerful tree of habit, bearing the good and life-giving fruit of right and happy living. Habit binds us; habit sets us free. Habit is primarily in thought, secondarily in deed. Turn the thought from bad to good, and the deed will immediately follow. Persist in the bad, and it will bind you tighter and tighter; persist in the good, and it will take you into ever-widening spheres of freedom. He who loves his bondage, let him remain bound. He who thirsts for freedom, let him come and be set free. [28 ] TBoDtlp Conditions THERE are to-day scores of distind schools devoted to the healing of the body ; a fadt which shows the great preva- lence of physical suffering, as the hundreds of religions, devoted to the comforting of men's minds,prove the universality of men- tal suffering. Each of these schools has its place in so far as it is able to relieve suffer- ing, even where it does not eradicate the evil ; for with all these schools of healing, the fads of disease and pain remain with us, just as sin and sorrow remain in spite of the many religions. Disease and pain, like sin and sorrow, are too deep-seated to be removed by pal- liatives. Our ailments have an ethical cause deeply rooted in the mind. I do not infer by this that physical conditions have no part in disease ; they play an important part as instruments, as fa&ors in the chain of causation. The microbe that carried the [29] Q0an: ftmgofe^inD black death was the instrument of unclean- liness, and uncleanliness is, primarily, a moral disorder. Matter is visible mind, and that bodily conflict which we call disease has a causal affinity to that mental confli&which is associated with sin. In his present human or self-conscious state, man's mind is con- tinually being disturbed by violently con- flicting desires, and his body attacked by morbid elements. He is in a state of men- tal inharmony and bodily discomfort. Ani- mals in their wild and primitive state are free from disease because they are free from inharmony. They are in accord with their surroundings, have no moral responsibility and no sense of sin, and are free from those violent disturbances of remorse, grief, dis- appointment, etc., which are so destructive of man's harmony and happiness, and their bodies are not affli&ed. As man ascends into the divine or cosmic-conscious state, he will leave behind and below him all these inner conflicts, will overcome sin and all sense [ 30] IBoop anD Circumstance of sin, and will dispel remorse and sorrow. Being thus restored to mental harmony, he will become restored to bodily harmony, to wholeness, health. The body is the image of the mind, and in it are traced the visible features of hidden thoughts. The outer obeys the inner, and the enlightened scientist of the future may be able to trace every bodily disorder to its ethical cause in the mentality. Mental harmony, or moral wholeness, makes for bodily health. I say makes for it y for it will not produce it magically, as it were, — as though one should swallow a bottle of medicine and then be whole and free, — but if the mentality is becoming more poised and restful, if the moral stature is increasing, then a sure foundation of bod- ily wholeness is being laid, the forces are being conserved and are receiving a better diredion and adjustment ; and even if per- fed health is not gained, the bodily derange- ment, whatever it be, will have lost its power c 31 ] to undermine the strengthened and uplifted mind. One who suffers in body will not neces- sarily at once be cured when he begins to fashion his mind on moral and harmonious principles; indeed, for a time, while the body is bringing to a crisis, and throwing off, the effects of former inharmonies, the morbid condition may appear to be intensified. As a man does not gain perfed peace imme- diately he enters upon the path of righteous- ness, but must, except in rare instances, pass through a painful period of adjustment; neither does he, with the same rare excep- tions, at once acquire perfect health. Time is required for bodily as well as mental read- justment, and even if health is not reached, it will be approached. If the mind be made robust, the bodily condition will take a secondary and subor- dinate place, and will cease to have that pri- mary importance which so many give to it. If a disorder is not cured, the mind can [ 32] IBoOp ano Circum0tance rise above it, and refuse to be subdued by it. One can be happy, strong, and useful in spite of it. The statement so often made by health specialists that a useful and happy life is impossible without bodily health is disproved by the fad: that numbers of men who have accomplished the greatest works — men of genius and superior talent in all departments — have been afflided in their bodies, and to-day there are plenty of living witnesses to this fad. Sometimes the bodily afflidion ads as a stimulus to mental adiv- ity, and aids rather than hinders its work. To make a useful and happy life dependent upon health, is to put matter before mind, is to subordinate spirit to body. Men of robust minds do not dwell upon -their bodily condition if it be in any way disordered — they ignore it,and work on, live on, as though it were not. This ignoring of the body not only keeps the mind sane and strong, but it is the best resource for cur- ing the body. If we cannot have a perfedly [ 33 ] sound body, we can have a healthy mind, and a healthy mind is the best route to a sound body. A sickly mind is more deplorable than a disordered body, and it leads to sickliness of body. The mental invalid is in a far more pitiable condition than the bodily invalid. There are invalids (every physician knows them) who only need to lift themselves into a strong, unselfish, happy frame of mind to discover that their body is whole and capable. Sickly thoughts about oneself, about one's body and food, should be abolished by all who are called by the name of man. The man who imagines that the wholesome food he is eating is going to injure him, needs to come to bodily vigour by the way of men- tal strength. To regard one's bodily health and safety as being dependent on a particu- lar kind of food which is absent from nearly every household, is to court petty disorders. The vegetarian who says he dare not eat [ 34] IBoDp ana Circumstance potatoes, that fruit produces indigestion, that apples give him acidity, that pulses are poison, that he is afraid of green vegetables, and so on, is demoralizing the noble cause which he professes to have espoused, is mak- ing it look ridiculous in the eyes of those ro- bust meat-eaters who live above such sickly fears and morbid self-scrutinies. To imagine that the fruits of the earth, eaten when one is hungry and in need of food, are destruc- tive of health and life is totally to misun- derstand the nature and office of food. The office of food is to sustain and preserve the body, not to undermine and destroy it. It is a strange delusion, — and one that must readt deleteriously upon the body, — that possesses so many who are seeking health by the way of diet, the delusion that certain of the simplest, most natural, and purest of viands are bad of themselves^ that they have in them the elements of death, and not of life. One of these food-reformers once told me that he believed his ailment (as well as [ 35 ] the ailments of thousands of others) was caused by eating bread; not by an excess of bread, but by the bread itself; and yet this man's bread food consisted of nutty, home- made, wholemeal loaves. Let us get rid of our sins, our sickly thoughts, our self-indul- gences and foolish excesses before attrib- uting our diseases to such innocent causes. Dwelling upon one's petty troubles and ailments is a manifestation of weakness of character. To so dwell upon them in thought leads to frequent talking about them, and this, in turn, impresses them more vividly upon the mind, which soon becomes de- moralized by such petting and pitying. It is as convenient to dwell upon happiness and health as upon misery and disease; as easy to talk about them, and much more pleasant and profitable to do so. "Let us live happily then y not hating those who hate us! Among men who hate us let us dwell free from hatred! [ 36 ] TBoDp anD €trcum0tance " Let us live happily then, free from ailments among the ailing! Among men who are ailing let us dwell free from ailments! " Let us live happily then, free from greed among the greedy! Among men who are greedy let us dwell free from greed!'' Moral principles are the soundest foun- dations for health, as well as for happiness. They are the true regulators of conduct, and they embrace every detail of life. When ear- nestly espoused and intelligently understood they will compel a man to reorganize his entire life down to the most apparently in- significant detail. While definitely regulating one's diet, they will put an end to squeam- ishness, food-fear, and foolish whims and groundless opinions as to the harmfulness of foods. When sound moral health has eradicated self-indulgence and self-pity, all natural foods will be seen as they are — nourishers of the body, and not its de- stroyers. [37] Thus a consideration of bodily conditions brings us inevitably back to the mind, and to those moral virtues which fortify it with an invincible protection. The morally right are the bodily right. To be continually transposing the details of life from passing views and fancies, without reference to fixed principles, is to flounder in confusion; but to discipline details by moral principles is to see, with enlightened vision, all details in their proper place and order. For it is given to moral principles alone, in their personal domain, to perceive the moral order. In them alone resides the in- sight that penetrates to causes, and with them only is the power to at once command all details to their order and place, as the magnet draws and polarizes the filings of steel. Better even than curing the body is to rise above it; to be its master, and not to be tyrannized over by it; not to abuse it, not to pander to it, never to put its claims [ an TBoDp anD Circumstance before virtue; to discipline and moderate its pleasures, and not to be overcome by its pains, — in a word, to live in the poise and strength of the moral powers, this, better than bodily cure, is yet a safe way to cure, and it is a permanent source of mental vigour and spiritual repose. [39] MANY of the greatest men through all ages have abandoned riches and adopted poverty to better enable them to accomplish their lofty purposes. Why, then, is poverty regarded as such a terrible evil? Why is it that this poverty, which these great men regard as a blessing, and adopt as a bride, should be looked upon by the bulk of mankind as a scourge and a plague? The answer is plain. In the one case, the poverty is associated with a nobility of mind which not only takes from it all appearance of evil, but which lifts it up and makes it appear good and beautiful, makes it seem more at- tractive and more to be desired than riches and honour, so much so that, seeing the dignity and happiness of the noble mendi- cant, thousands imitate him by adopting his mode of life. In the other case, the poverty of our great cities is associated with every- thing that is mean and repulsive — -with [40] 9^an: ©tfng; of^tntJ swearing, drunkenness, filth, laziness, dis- honesty, and crime. What, then, is the pri- mary evil : is it poverty, or is it sin ? The answer is inevitable — it is sin. Remove sin from poverty, and its sting is gone; it has ceased to be the gigantic evil that it ap- peared, and can even be turned to good and noble ends. Confucius held up one of his poor disciples, Yen-hwui by name, as an ex- ample of lofty virtue to his richer pupils, yet "although he was so poor that he had to live on rice and water, and had no better shelter than a hovel, he uttered no com- plaint. Where this poverty would have made other men discontented and miser- able, he did not allow his equanimity to be disturbed." Poverty cannot undermine a noble chara&er, but it can set it off to better advantage. The virtues of Yen-hwui shone all the brighter for being set in poverty, like resplendent jewels set in a contrasting back- ground. It is common with social reformers to [41 ] regard poverty as the cause of the sins with which it is associated; yet the same reform- ers refer to the immoralities of the rich as being caused by their riches. Where there is a cause its effedt will appear, and were affluence the cause of immorality, and pov- erty the cause of degradation, then every rich man would become immoral and every poor man would come to degradation. An evil-doer will commit evil under any circumstances, whether he be rich or poor, or midway between the two conditions. A right-doer will do right howsoever he be placed. Extreme circumstances may help to bring out the evil which is already there awaiting its opportunity, but they cannot cause the evil, cannot create it. Discontent with one's financial condition is not the same as poverty. Many people re- gard themselves as poor whose income runs into several hundreds, and in some cases several thousands, of pounds a year, com- bined with light responsibilities. They im- [42 ] IBoDp ano Circumstance agine their affli&ion to be poverty; their real trouble is covetousness^ They are not made unhappy by poverty, but by the thirst for riches. Poverty is more often in the mind than in the purse. So long as a man thirsts for more money he will regard him- self as poor, and in that sense he is poor, for covetousness is poverty of mind. A miser may be a millionaire, but he is as poor as when he was penniless. On the other hand, the trouble with so rtiany who are living in indigence and deg- radation is that they are satisfied with their condition. To be living in dirt, disorder, laziness, and swinish self-indulgence, revel- ling in foul thoughts, foul words, and un- clean surroundings, and to be satisfied with oneself, is deplorable. Here again, "pov- erty " resolves itself into a mental condition, and its solution, as a "problem," is to be looked for in the improvement of the in- dividual from within, rather than of his out- ward condition. Let a man be made clean [43 ] and alert within, and he will no longer be content with dirt and degradation without. Having put his mind in order, he will then put his house in order; indeed, both he and others will know that he has put himself right by the fadt that he has put his imme- diate surroundings right. His altered heart shows in his altered life. There are, of course, those who are nei- ther self-deceived nor self-degraded, and yet are poor. Many such are satisfied to remain poor. They are contented, industri- ous, and happy, and desire nothing else; but those among them who are dissatisfied, and are ambitious for better surroundings and greater scope, should, and usually do, use their poverty as a spur to the exercise of their talents and energies. By self-improve- ment and attention to duty, they can rise into the fuller, more responsible life which they desire. Devotion to duty is, indeed, not only the way out of that poverty which is regarded [44] TBoDp anD Circumstance as restri&ive, it is also the royal road to af- fluence, influence, and lasting joy, yea, even to perfection itself. When understood in its deepest sense it is seen to be related to all that is best and noblest in life. It includes energy, industry, concentrated attention to the business of one's life, singleness of pur- pose, courage and faithfulness, determina- tion and self-reliance, and that self-abnega- tion which is the key to all real greatness. A singularly successful man was once asked, "What is the secret of your success?" and he replied, "Getting up at six o'clock in the morning, and minding my own business." Success, honour, and influence always come to him who diligently attends to the business of his life, and religiously avoids interfering with the duties of others. It may here be urged — and is usually so urged — that the majority of those who are in poverty — for instance, the mill and fac- tory workers — have not the time or oppor- tunity to give themselves to any special [45 ] a9an: ^tngof^tnD work. This is a mistake. Time and oppor- tunity are always at hand, are with every- body at all times. Those of the poor above mentioned, who are content to remain where they are, can always be diligent in their fac- tory labour, and sober and happy in their homes, but those of them who feel that they could better fill another sphere, can prepare for it by educating themselves in their spare time. The hard-worked poor are, above all, the people who need to economize their time and energies; and the youth who wishes to rise out of such poverty must at the out- set put aside the foolish and wasteful indul- gences of alcohol, tobacco, sexual vice, late hours at music-halls, clubs, and gaming par- ties, and must give his evenings to the im- provement of his mind in that course of education which is necessary to his advance- ment. By this method, numbers of the most influential men throughout history — some of them among the greatest — have raised themselves from the commonest poverty; [46] 16oDp ano Circumstance a fa6t which proves that the time of neces- sity is the hour of opportunity, and not, as is so often imagined and declared, the destruftion of opportunity ; that the deeper the poverty, the greater is the incentive to a6lion in those who are dissatisfied with themselves, and are bent upon achievement. Poverty is an evil or it is not, according to the character and the condition of mind of the one that is in poverty. Wealth is an evil or not, in the same manner. Tolstoi chafed under his wealthy circumstances. To him they were a great evil. He longed for poverty as the covetous long for wealth. Vice, however, is always an evil, for it both degrades the individual who commits it, and is a menace to society. A logical and pro- found study of poverty will always bring us back to the individual, and to the human heart. When our social reformers condemn vice as they now condemn the rich; when they are as eager to abolish wrong-living as they now are to abolish low wages, we [47 ] may look for a diminution in that form of degraded poverty which is one of the dark spots on our civilization. Before such pov- erty disappears altogether, the human heart will have undergone, during the process of evolution, a radical change. When that heart is purged from covetousness and selfishness; when drunkenness, impurity, indolence, and self-indulgence are driven for ever from the earth, then poverty and riches will be known no more, and every man will perforin his duties with a joy so full and deep as is yet (except to the few whose hearts are already pure) unknown to men, and all will eat of the fruit of their labour in sublime self-re- sped and perfed peace. [48 ] Q^an'0 Spiritual Dominion THE kingdom over which man is des- tined to rule with undisputed sway is that of his own mind and life; but this king- dom, as already shown, is not separate from the universe, is not confined to itself alone; it is intimately related to entire humanity, to nature, to the current of events in which it is, for the time being, involved, and to the vast universe. Thus the mastery of this kingdom embraces the mastery of the know- ledge of life; it lifts a man into the suprem- acy of wisdom, bestowing upon him the gift of insight into human hearts, giving him the power to distinguish between good and evil, also to comprehend that which is above both good and evil, and to know the nature and consequences of deeds. At present men are more or less under the sway of rebellious thoughts, and the conquest of these is the supreme conquest of life. The unwise think that everything [49 ] 99an: &mg of Si^mD can be mastered but oneself, and they seek for happiness for themselves and others by modifying external things. The transposing of outward effe&s cannot bring permanent happiness, or bestow wisdom; the patching and coddling of a sin-laden body cannot produce health and well-being. The wise know that there is no real mastery until self is subdued, that when oneself is conquered, the subjugation of externals is finally as- sured, and they find happiness for ever springing up within them, in the calm strength of divine virtue. They put away sin, and purify and strengthen the body by rising superior to the sway of its passions. Man can reign over his own mind; can be lord over himself. Until he does so reign, his life is unsatisfa&ory and imperfeft. His spiritual dominion is the empire of the mental forces of which his nature is com- posed. The body has no causative power. The ruling of the body — that is, of appe- tite and passion — is the discipline ofmental [ 50 ] TSoop anD Circumstance forces. The subduing, modifying, redirect- ing, and transmuting of the antagonizing spiritual elements within, is the wonderful and mighty work which all men must, sooner or later, undertake. For a long time man regards himself as the slave of exter- nal forces, but there comes a day when his spiritual eyes open, and he sees that he has been a slave this long time to none and nothing but his own ungoverned, unpuri- fied self. In that day, he rises up, and, as- cending his spiritual throne, he no longer obeys his desires, appetites, and passions as their slave, but henceforth rules them as his subjects. The mental kingdom through which he has been wont to wander as a puling beggar and a whipped serf, he now discovers is his by right of lordly self-con- trol — his to set in order, to organize and harmonize, to abolish. its dissensions and painful contradictions, and bring it to a state of peace. Thus rising up and exercising his right- [51 ] ful spiritual authority, he enters the com- pany of those kingly ones who in all ages have conquered and attained, who have overcome ignorance, darkness, and mental suffering, and have ascended into Truth. [ 52 ] Conquest: Jftot Resignation HE who has undertaken the sublime task of overcoming himself, does not resign himself to anything that is evil; he subjeds himself only to that which is good. Resignation to evil is the lowest weakness; obedience to good is the highest power. To resign oneself to sin and sorrow, to igno- rance and suffering, is to say in eflfed:, " I give up; I am defeated; life is evil, and I submit." Such resignation to evil is the reverse of religion. It is a diredl denial of good; it elevates evil to the position of supreme power in the universe. Such sub- mission to evil shows itself in a selfish and sorrowful life; a life alike devoid of strength against temptation, and of that joy and calm which are the manifestation of a mind that is dominated by good. Man is not framed for perpetual resig- nation and sorrow, but for final victory and joy. All the spiritual laws of the universe [53] a^an: Ring offl^inD are with the good man, for good preserves and shields. There are no laws of evil. Its nature is destruction and desolation. The conscious modification of the charac- ter away from evil and towards good, forms, at present, no part in the common course of education. Even our religious teachers have lost this knowledge and practice, and cannot, therefore, instruct concerning it. Moral growth is, so far, in the great mass of mankind, unconscious, and is brought about by the stress and struggle of life. The time will come, however, when the conscious formation of character will form an impor- tant part in the education of youth, and when no man will be able to fill the position of preacher unless he be a man of habitual self-control, unblemished integrity, and ex- alted purity, so as to be able to give sound instruction in the making of character, which will then be the main feature of religion. The do&rine herein set forth by the author is the do&rine of conquest over [ 54 ] TBoDp ano Circumstance evil; the annihilation of sin; and necessarily the permanent establishment of man in the knowledge of good, and in the enjoyment of perpetual peace. This is the teaching of the Masters of religion in all ages. Howso- ever it may have been disguised and dis- torted by the unenlightened, it is the doc- trine of all the perfect ones that were, and will be the do&rine of all the perfect ones that are to come. It is the dodtrine of Truth. And the conquest is not of an evil with- out; not of evil men, or evil spirits, or evil things; but of the evil within; of evil thoughts, evil desires, evil deeds; for when every man has destroyed the evil within his own heart, to where in the whole vast uni- verse will any one be able to point, and say, "There is evil"? In that great day when all men have become good within, all traces of evil will have vanished from the earth; sin and sorrow will be unknown ; and there will be universal joy for evermore. H 124 81 A ' : "«< .•K 5 * I V\