Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



there is in man a divine consciousness as well as 

 a foot-consciousness. For, as we saw that the 

 sense of taste may pass from being a mere local 

 thing on the tip of the tongue to pervading and 

 becoming synonymous with the health of the whole 

 body ; or as the blue of the sky may be to one 

 person a mere superficial impression of colour, 

 and to another the inspiration of a poem or picture, 

 and to a third — as to the " god-intoxicated " 

 Arab of the desert — a living presence like the an- 

 cient Dyaus or Zeus ; so may not the whole of 

 human consciousness gradually lift itself from a 

 mere local and temporary consciousness to a divine 

 and universal ? There is in every man a local 

 consciousness connected with his quite external 

 body ; that we know. Are there not also in 

 every man the makings of a universal conscious- 

 ness ? That there are in us phases of con- 

 sciousness which transcend the limit of the bodily 

 senses, is a matter of daily experience ; that 

 we perceive and know things which are not 

 conveyed to us by our bodily eyes or heard by 

 our bodily ears, is certain ; that there rise in us 

 waves of consciousness from those around us, 

 from the people, the race, to which we belong, 

 is also certain ; may there not then be in us the 

 makings of a perception and knowledge which 

 shall not be relative to this body which is here and 

 now, but which shall be good for all time and every- 

 where ? Does there not exist, in truth, as we 

 have already hinted — an inner Illumination — of 

 which what we call light in the outer world is the 



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