180 THE UNIVERSE 



somewhere. They are a spiritual entity, but should 

 not be regarded as having a supernatural origin. 



"The spirit is an evolution of planetary life and 

 cannot be destroyed, and it is natural that its men- 

 tal attachments to the planet should bring it in 

 contact with the mental development generated 

 there. The spirit would have the power of thought 

 and consecutive reasoning as much after its tran- 

 sition from mortal life as before, but it would lack 

 the power of expression through ordinary channels, 

 It would, however, have the power of inductive electric 

 transfer of thought, and, coming in contact with a 

 spirit embodied, this power of induction would 

 excite the elements in the spirit embodied to equili- 

 brium of mentality, which would give rise to a simi- 

 larity of thought in both." And here lies the foun- 

 dation of the doctrine of inspiration which is a pro- 

 cess of mental action whereby the mind in the body 

 is raised to a perception and expression of ideas 

 beyond its own range of thought as generated by 

 the physical senses. The result is the upbuilding 

 of the brain organ and the uplifting of the mental- 

 ity to the purely spiritual plane, and man has thus, 

 by the aid of the spiritual powers, made another 

 stride forward in the domain of spiritual evolution. 

 And man is a spiritualized being with brain organs 

 adapted to the expression of ideas that respond to 

 the spiritual state of life. 



It is sometimes assumed that a man cannot be a 

 Christian and a man of science; yet there have been 

 many men of science, from Newton to Lord Kelvin, 

 who were devout Christians. It is also assumed in 

 some quarters that an educated man cannot believe 

 in miracles, or answers to prayer, or special provi- 



