56 



SYDNEY T. KLEIN ON THE INVISIBLE IS THE REAL, 



to the world : and alas ! many others are struggling for a mere 

 pittance for their daily bread. All in different ways are living 

 in a world of physical domination created by their thoughts in 

 this world of appearances They are worshipping the fetish ot 

 the visible, as though it were the real, and if at times they are 

 urged to think of the Invisible, the wonderful true meaning of 

 our life here, they cannot find tim.e for its consideration and put 

 it off till to-morrow — which never comes. 



It w-as this obsession which made the last war possible. For 

 many years before the final cataclysm in 1914, the human race 

 in almost every country was steadily raising up and worshipping 

 the fetish of outward material power and ignoring the real inner 

 spiritual life to which the scheme of creation is carrying us. 



This obsession was more in evidence in Germany than in any 

 other country. The vahie of the Invisible was ignored and with 

 it v/ent all reverence for religious and ethical ideals. Pride of 

 intellect supplanted spiritual discernment with the result that all 

 thoughts and actions became wholly governed by the desire for 

 self-aggrandisement. Ruthless ambition for mastery was taught 

 in their schools as the true aim of life, and was openly advocated 

 by their politicians, irrespective of the rights of weaker nations, 

 culminating in the audacious dream of " Germany above all," 

 with Berlin as the centre of a world-wide domination. The war 

 has been a terrible lesson, but the shock has brought the human 

 race to the point of awakening to a new and better aspect of life. 

 It may even be realised that that shock has been a blessing in 

 disguise, and that without it an even greater upheaval later on 

 would have been necessarv^ to have the same effect. 



AVe will now examine this world of appearance and try to 

 realise how very limited is the outlook we can employ for under- 

 standing our surroundings. Let us first examine our sense 

 organs through which, only, can we get knowledge of that outside 

 world. It is only comparatively lately that by the study of 

 embryology we have discovered that all our sense organs have 

 been developed from the same source, namely, from the outside 

 skin. In the embryo of every animal we see that the first vestige 

 of the advent of each sense organ is a wrinkle or enfoldment of 

 the external skin, and from this common beginning are, in due 

 course, developed the organs by means of which we become aware 

 of our surroundings. 



These organs are all formed on the same plan, namely, for the 

 detection of vibrations or movements in the aether, air or matter, 

 and they are each endowed with bundles of nerves or nerve 

 processes which can be affected sympathetically by the particular 

 pitch of vibrations which that organ is meant to receive. Each 

 organ is therefore limited to a certain range of perception, and 

 though in the last fifty years we have invented instruments to 



