COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



between the statical and dynamical habits of 

 thinking, to which attention was called in an 

 earlier chapter. 



A statical view of things, as I have above de- 

 fined it, is one which is adjusted solely or chiefly 

 to relations existing in the immediate environ- 

 ment of the thinker. Certain groups of physi- 

 cal phenomena, certain psychical prejudices, cer- 

 tain social customs, having existed with tolerable 

 uniformity over a limited portion of the earth*s 

 surface, it is assumed either that the given phe- 

 nomena have always existed, or at least that 

 they enter by divine prearrangement into the 

 eternal order of things in such a way that any 

 thoroughgoing alteration of them must involve 

 universal anarchy and ruin. The fundamental 

 doctrine of the philosophy which is determined 

 by this statical habit of interpreting phenomena 

 is the Doctrine of Creation. The world is sup- 

 posed to have been suddenly brought into exist- 

 ence at some assignable epoch, since which time 

 it has remained substantially unaltered. Exist- 

 ing races of sentient creatures are held to have 

 been created by a miraculous fiat in accordance 

 with sundry organic types which, as represent- 

 ing unchangeable ideas in the Divine Mind, 

 can never be altered by physical circumstances. 

 The social institutions also, amid which the par- 

 ticular statical theory originates, are either re- 

 ferred back to the foundation of the world, as is 

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