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A CALL TO THE "AWAKENED" FROM "THE UNSEEN AND UNKNOWN," FOR AN ESOTERIC COLLEGE, AND FOR G.....R DEPT. NO. 1.

The Object of Pantognomos, IN ORGANIZING THE THREE BRANCHES OF THE G.N.K.R, EXPLAINED FROM THE G.....R STANDPOINT.

''Power belongs to him who knows!"
-- Brahmanical Book of Evocation.

"Happiness conies to him who does as well as he knows."
-- Precept of Vidya-Nyaika.

"He who has correct concepts of Nature knows: he who has cultured the Will and the Moral Disposition does as well as he knows."
-- G.N.K.R Proverb.

"Man is Nature risen up to look at herself."
-- Unknown

"There must exist somewhere a light for the guidance of man: I will make myself bold and seek out a new law."
-- Siddartha Gautama.

Concepts are the Memories of the experiences which Consciousness has had with the Organism and its environments: the organism being part of the environment of Consciousness — and the most immediate part.

An object is recognized by the mind through the medium of the senses — the picture of that object remains in the Memory, and that picture is a Concept. If the object has been superficially observed, and its internal structure not examined, this concept will to that extent be imperfect. The more we examine that object and the more facts we learn about it, the more perfect will that concept be. Reason enables the relation between that object and the concept to be traced, and the concepts to be classified. Imagination uses concepts as material with which to construct other concepts of the second order called generalizations. Judgment chooses between motives and concepts. Intellection is the action of the concepts upon the mind; Sambudhism is the action of forces from the non-ego upon the mental structure producing mental and emotional effects which may or may not enter the sphere of the conscious; but whether conscious or not, play an important part in the history of the life of the organism; they become conscious only when the state they produce is analagous to some of the experiences of the Consciousness, i. e, of the Concepts. Therefore as far as the reason or judgment is concerned in the guidance of conduct it all depends upon the accuracy and extent of the Concepts.

THE WORK OF PANTOGNOMOS.

As far as knowledge has been made definite by accurate research and by the application of the Laws, it will serve as a guidance of an exact nature in all the affairs of life. To the extent that accurate knowledge has been systemized — to the extent that the processes of life, mind and society, have been reduced to definite laws and are proven to be such by accurate experimental investigation, — to that extent will science serve as a safe guide and be a safe foundation upon which to base a quantitative formulation of the laws of ethical and moral guidance. Before giving expression to such rules of human guidance we must know as absolutely why right is right, and why wrong is wrong as we now know that parallel lines cannot meet however far they may be extended. In a general way it may be stated that the G.N.K.R consider ''that to be right which is in harmony with the fundamental pitches of an aggregate, and that to be wrong which is discordant to the same pitches or forces." But all this must be reduced to definite formulae, and specific application made to given individual and social conditions.

Just as far as we are able to base our rules and laws upon accurate concepts of nature will they be safe guides in human affairs; and just to the extent that these concepts have been derived from inaccurate observations will they be made unsafe guides. The larger portion of human affairs can thus be reduced to accurate guidance, but no matter how far we may thus be able to advance in the domain of accurate knowledge, there will still be a domain of the unknown: as the circle of knowledge increases, the circumference of darkness widens. And upon that border-land between the Unknown and Known there must always be a realm of uncertainty. Within the confines of the known there can be but little doubt regarding the proper course of action under all circumstances; but in that indistinct region where science and hypotheses are indiscriminately intermingled, there must ever be a state of uncertainty regarding the proper course of action, under given conditions, and in this dim and misty region where the dawn has not yet dispersed the clouds we must have some other guide than science; and that is the line beyond which the G.N.K.R do not attempt to formulate. That is the especial province of the intuitions, and of the sambudhistic faculties, the systematic cultivation of which is the peculiar work of the G.....R, in addition to the work elsewhere described. Where accurate knowledge ends, and where definite laws in the terms of physical concepts are no longer obtainable, there, we are compelled to entrust ourselves to the guidance of another order of influences, the outworking of which requires however, a knowledge of the facts of nature. This order of influences embracing among other things the intuitions, emotions, sambudhisms, and psychisms, belongs to the sphere of the G.....R whose various departments are devoted to the development of the higher attributes of the mind and soul which make the reception of higher knowledge possible, and its utilization practicable. Its province is the preparation of the human soul; the refinement of the organism; the acceleration of individual evolution and involution; the development of the higher susceptibilities; and the training of those powers of the mind, soul, and spirit, which are just dawning within us, and which are not yet sufficiently developed to justify their acceptance as accurate guides in the regulation of life. But as fast as these experiences are systemized and accurately determined they will be recorded in the Archives of the Association and will then become factors in the accurate formulation of ethical rules. The training of the soul powers which are just entering into human consciousness requires a condition of things which are not obtainable in the ordinary social state; and the regulation of the experimental investigation to be carried on in this direction is a work of the G.....R. The systematic application of the human will to the production of definite results; and the development of desires for their proper use in prayer; and all those practices and kinds of conduct which relate to the development of a union with the consciousness of the Infinite Organism which fills all space; and the practice and study of all those phenomena which are too indefinite to become subjects of accurate knowledge, will belong to the work of the G.....R. These faculties which relate to the powers which are just dawning in the mind are the beacon lights upon another shore of knowledge from which we have not as yet gathered fruits and flowers. These intuitions, and sambudhisms, and psychisms, are not definite propositions and formulae, but they point out the place where the definite formulae exist, and they show in which direction to look for the light of the dawn. The results of these mental states cannot become definite guides until they have been reduced to a definite formulation by Science.

Science deals entirely with concepts, and concepts therefore become the ultimate guides to definite action; and Science is therefore the ethical law-giver, and the moral legislator. Morality in its highest and broadest sense consists in the application of knowledge to the special wants of different individuals, races, and stages of Evolution. Religion, like philosophy, is a guide-board at the end of the road pointing to the unknown and unexplored.

Its use is also the development of those special conditions upon which the advent of the higher knowledge depends. It prepares the soil in which the new fruit can grow. Every creed and every philosophy has its special use in the great plan of the Infinite All. No matter how contradictory and seemingly antagonistic the several beliefs may be, they all serve a use in the higher growth of those mental and spiritual conditions upon which the reception of new light and the dawning of new powers depend. Every ritual serves as a means to an end. As long as there are lower races in the presence of the higher races there will be various religions adapted to the varying needs and capacities of the different people of the earth. The highly developed people on earth will still be but children in knowledge, when compared with those that are still higher in the scale of development, and the successive approximations to the truth will ever produce creeds and philosophies until man rises above them, by recognizing that absolute knowledge is unattainable, and that by facts, and not theories, are the only directly understandable words of the Infinite All to man. The office of religion is to promote the practice of those habits and mental conditions which are promoters of the development of the new powers and the reception of higher truths. Hence, it is evident that those devotional exercises and practices which are necessary for the growth of higher capacities in the lower races will be merely a waste of time in those who have already attained those powers. Those, who according to the light of ENS, MOVENS, and OM, have searched the religions of the Past, see more than contradictions in the teachings of the Saviours of the world; and find a glorious curriculum in successive steps taken by the world in its religious Evolution.

Among the teachers in this course we find Christna of Hindoostan; Buddha Sakia, of India; Salivahena, of Bermuda; Zulis, Thor, Osirus, and Horas, of Egypt; Odin, of Scandinavia; Chrite, of Chaldea; Zoroaster and Mithra, of Persia; Baal and Taut, of Phoenicia; Indra, of Thibet; Bali, of Afganistan; Jas, of Nepaul; Jehovah, of the Jews; Wittoba, of the Belingonese; Thammuz, of Syria; Atys, of Phrygia; Xamolis, of Thrace; Zoar, of Bonzes; Adad, of Assyria; Deva, Tat, and Samono Cadam, of Siam; Alcides, of Thebes; Mikado, of the Sintoos; Beddru, of Japan; Hesus, Eros, and Bramilla, of the Druids; Thor, of the Gauls; Cadmus, of Greece; Hil and Feta, of the Mandaites; the Gentaut and Quexalcote, of Mexico; Fohi and Tien, of China; Ixion and Quirinis, of Rome; Prometheus of Caucasus; Confucius, of China; Christ, of Palestine; and Mohammed, of Arabia; and all the philosophers from Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Lucretius and other Grecian and Roman writers down to Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Fichte, Kant, Hegel, Buchner, Mill, Darwin, Faraday, Tyndall, Spencer, and the Physicists and Scientists of the world. To determine from all that has been thought and done, and from the best knowledge of the present time what constitutes the physical basis of right and wrong, and to define the same in the terms of mathematical and physical concepts, and to make the same applicable to all conditions and organisms, was the fundamental conception of the work of Pantognomos as given to the three heads in whose hands the laws and the work was placed. The object being to determine accurately as much truth and fact as is possible to the present condition of the human mind, and to make that the basis of a law of ethics and morals. Any theory of duty contradictory to the known facts cannot be the true theory of human guidance to those that are capable of knowing those truths. There are certain facts that are so self-evident, and certain principles so easily demonstrated that they can be considered perfect knowledge as far as they go. Any philosophy which is inherently contradictory to those facts must be all erroneous and an unsafe belief. All there is to mathematics can be considered as established truth, and any religion basing a theory of duty upon a dogma contradictory to those facts must be wrong to all those people that are capable of comprehending mathematics. There are also certain biological and chemical truths and facts so clearly ascertainable that any ethical theory which is contradictory to them must be untrue and unsafe to those who are capable of learning and understanding those truths. The smaller the collection of those unimpeachable truths which any man possesses the more likely he is to be mistaken in the guidance of his conduct, or in the philosophy of things which he entertains. After the sum of human knowledge has been collected it will serve as a basis for the correction of theories and philosophies, and as a basis for the formulation of rules for the better guidance of life, mind, and society.

By means of the Hierarchy, and the Association at its disposal, Pantognomos hopes to collect all the certain knowledge of the world and use it in teaching the people higher conceptions of duty, and more accurate ideas of that which is right and that which is wrong. He hopes to make it plain to the people why certain things are right, and why certain other things are wrong, and they are to know it with as much certainty as they now know the truths about certain chemical properties and certain anatomical and physiological functions. Nothing should become the basis of a theory of ethical duty until it is understood why it is right and how it affects the actor. The first and most immediate aim of Pantognomos is the following: —

First: — To scientifically formulate and quantitatively define the fundamental law of Concepts in terms of organic action, and upon a mathematical and physical basis, and from which can be deductively derived the ethical and moral laws applicable to all organisms in all environments.

Second: — The systematic development, training and perfection of the Moral Disposition according to the laws thus formulated.

Third: — The systematic training of the Will according to the laws thus developed and formulated, and in harmony with the Astro-biometric laws of the Culture, of the G.N.K.R.

Pantognomos has a greater work to perform than that involved in the practical exploitation of any or all of the processes or laws placed in the hands of the Association, or than involved in the extension or elaboration of whatever laws may be discovered in the future; and he has placed in the charge of the three Branches, that which is perhaps the greatest opportunity of this or of any age, and upon them rests an imperative duty — the burden of a great responsibility that cannot with impunity be neglected: — The formulation of the fundamental law of ethics and morals and the application of the laws to a system of moral training, and the development therefrom of a system of Culture based entirely upon those facts which have been accurately determined, and are well understood.

The scientific tendencies of this age must receive a definite expression, and the divergent philosophical and moral systems that have been the regulative forces of social and political organization must be unified around some more definite and exact principle, before the present and rapid disintegration has entirely destroyed the social coherence. But this readjustment must not be made by any regulative system that is capable of being transformed into a creed, for any philosophy must cease to fit the heart and brain of a people who have advanced in knowledge and experience beyond that which was possessed by the people who formulated the system. All past readjustments have been made around some theory — what the world needs is a readjustment without a creed — some working ideas of duty expressive of the facts and needs of society — some philosophical basis that will accommodate itself to the steady advancement of knowledge, and can grow simultaneously as the sum of knowledge and experience grows. It must relate in the most direct and positive manner to human duty, and must be based upon that which will remain unchangeable throughout all time. It must lie at the very bottom of all possible theories and creeds, and must have for its ground-work that which all coming philosophies and theories must include. It must contain the source of all advancement, and must point out the means and the direction to all possible Good. It must have a concrete aspect — capable of being comprehended by all that are able to think, and must be consistent with the highest thought. It must be the fundamental expression of human duty — not in the abstract but in the concrete. Its basis must be beyond all formulae, beyond all philosophy, beyond and anterior to observation and reason: — it must lie behind and above all possible generalization and the highest expression of any coming theory must still lie as a subordinate corollary to his ultimate theory of duty — in short this expression of the moral law must be the most evident and unchangeable of all facts. It must systemize the formation of creeds as well as the process by which they are inevitably replaced by others.

It is perpetually observable that people look at facts through the light of a theory — a belief makes a partial and prejudiced observer. People start out in the direction indicated by some new philosophy and faithfully travel until accumulating facts demonstrate that a wrong direction has been taken, and then slowly abandon the old guides and go back and start over. The fundamental idea of duty must remain the same throughout all time, and must point out the proper direction upon all the roads that humanity will ever travel. It must unmistakably point out the greatest good of the race. No one must have any doubt but that it does actually point out the greatest good — it must be as evident that the course of action thus pointed out is the best and only possible course as it is evident that people are capable of suffering pain or enjoying pleasure. The fundamental Law of Duty, or the real basis of a true and natural morality has not yet received at the hands of the G.N.K.R a definite expression. Before a theory of Ethics can be formulated for any given social state, or before a true theory of the duties of all organisms can be enunciated, this underlying law must receive inductive and deductive sanction of the most exhaustive and complete kind. This law must lie at the very basis of all organic action — must include the operation of all the forces concerned in the direct maintenance of life and its functions, and of the forces favorably or unfavorably affecting it. It must be a concrete fact expressing the fundamental nature of the adaptation of organisms to their environments, and this expression must continue to be true throughout all possible changes of the environment and all possible changes of the organism. It must not only define the true basis of all duty in such societies as are now existent in the different countries of the world, but it must be a definition as applicable to the Past as to the Future; — not only to this age but to all other ages, not only to this earth but to all other worlds in space. It must lie deeper than the interests of any race of people; and outside of their peculiar environments. This fundamental Law of Duty as applicable to any race must not be a philosophical generalization, for philosophies ever change with advancing knowledge; it must not be a creed for that will not fit changed environments and more highly or less highly developed organisms; it must not be a definite ritual or a series of empirical rules for that implies a perfect knowledge of all the facts and conditions of any given social condition, and that is not possible because knowledge is relative and not absolute.

Derivable from the fundamental principle must exist corollaries applicable to any past or any coming condition of environment. There can be no appreciable ratio between a knowledge of the finite and the Infinite, between relative knowledge and absolute knowledge; and there is no evidence of analogy that we have even approximately reached the limit of mental evolution, or that we yet possess all the brain organs possible to a higher development of our race; and therefore any philosophy that we may formulate now, must be replaced by others as we acquire new mental faculties and new brain organs; and any system now formulated must be far from the truth, not only because knowledge increases but also because Nature is viewed from a different standpoint, and different classes of facts are successively considered in different times. Until the mind can view the earth from a standpoint more remote than that which is local to time and place, not even one hemisphere of the sum of knowledge can be comprehended; but it is still more difficult to see both sides of the sphere and to do so successfully requires the formation of a series of successively more and more complex concepts. This comprehensive Moral law cannot receive definite expression until all biological, sociological, psychological and other correlative facts have been collected, systemized and generalized, and until that has been done, it will be entirely practical to give to the general conception a concrete and empirical expression.

Nocturnia desirous of finding the valuable treasure laying in his door-yard, and being too impatient to wait until morning, set his house on fire in order that he might by the light thereof recover his jewel: — had he waited for the dawn he might have had both the jewel and the house.

It is very evident that no one ethical system can be applicable to different grades of evolved creatures: actions capable of prolonging or destroying life vary with different organisms — what would kill one proves life sustaining to another. It would be senseless to advise a fish to take a daily bath, or to advise a man to bury himself in the mud during the winter months.

The earth is filled with living creatures of all grades of intellectual evolution and of all kinds of structures; and these various organic beings are placed often in the same habitat, and often in different habitats. Some have organs that others have not, and have correspondingly varying needs. That ethical system which would work the highest good for one would be destructive to another; but races of men also differ — the structural differences may not be so great as has been pointed out between some organisms, but that there is a functional and structural difference justifies the hypothesis that there should be different ethical and moral systems for the different races. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has thought as effectively upon this subject as any other philosopher, has concluded that there is an absolute and a relative Ethics — that the absolute ethics is unattainable in any except an ideal social state, and that an ethically ideal man could not live as such in a society less highly evolved. He has shown that an ideal ethical life is not applicable to a less highly evolved society, leaving the inference to be made that for the less highly evolved society there must be a certain ethical principle which to it is a more fitting ideal. If Spencer's law of Ethics was applicable to all social conditions it would have been applicable to all possible developments. Not for a moment would Mr. Spencer endeavor to apply an absolute morality to any existing or to any coming social state. He admits that it can only be a relative Right and a relative Wrong, and that what would be perfectly right in a lower development would be absolutely wrong in a higher development. He admits that the ethical conduct of a highly developed man could not be applied to a lower in the scale of evolution, thus admitting that to the lower man there is a kind of conduct which is for him a more necessary right than that which is the absolute right for the higher man. The higher ethical conceptions of the higher races would not be morality for the lower races. That ethical conduct which works out the highest happiness for the thinkers and philosophers of Europe would be entirely out of place among birds, or even among Australian Savages. Now the broad fact that there is an evolution in ethics as in everything else, conclusively demonstrates that with the varying degrees of evolution among the evolved creatures, there must be a corresponding ethical practice. The compromise between Altruism and Egoism, between absolute and relative ethics, which so much concerned Mr. Spencer, and the endeavor to obtain a formula applicable to all the varying social conditions in a mixed society, would have been an easy task if he had obtained a fundamental ethical principal, or discovered the fundamental Moral law. Such a Law must be applicable to all creatures equally; it must include the different ethics of the different grades of evolution, and must include as one of its deductions all the varying ethical systems adaptable to all the children of Evolution; and as the outcome of any given lower grade of life must eventually be the acquirement of a grade of intelligence similar to that which we now call highly evolved, it is evident that the ultimate effect of all the ethical systems adapted to all the grades of being in the universe must be conducive to the same end; it matters not whether that end be called the greatest possible happiness or the greatest possible evolution in complexity of function and structure; and the different ethical systems applicable to all the protean forms and conditions of life must therefore be different expressions of some fundamental expression applicable to them all, and to which all the different and widely varying and often seemingly antagonistic moral and ethical systems are in absolute harmony. At first thought this seems to be an impossibility; that it is not, subsequent demonstrations will prove — demonstrations that will be made in the Hierarchy, and systematized after the "eleven years work" have been completed.

That no such Law has yet been conceived will be obvious to any one after a careful reading of all the ethical systems of the world: the belief has been that some proverb-like expression could be applied to all humanity. That "Love thy neighbor as thyself "; or an axiomatic formula like that of the "Golden Rule" of Confucius, was all that could be necessary for the guidance of conduct — yet, what an imperfect and unsafe guide such partial rules are! The origin of the "golden rule" is lost in the gray night of Hindoo antiquity, and was enunciated 500 B. C. by Confucius. Aristotle, Pittacus, Thales, Isocrates and Sextus all differently expressed the "Golden Rule" long before its adoption by the Christians. By Plato, and more distinctly by Jonathan Edwards, it was conceived that "perfection" was the standard of ethical conduct, but this has no meaning when applied to such varying creatures as we find produced by evolution; besides perfection is goodness, and to define "good" conduct in terms of "perfection" is to define conduct in terms of itself. Aristotle entertained the idea of "virtuousness of action as an end" as a standard of conduct; and Plato believed that there existed an absolute and ideal good. Others take for a test of the correctness of conduct the character and the rectitude of the motive which prompted the act: but the most honorable motive in the world will not save us from the consequences of an act inherently wrong. Others, as Hutcheson, entertain the intuitional theory of morals as a standard of conduct; but there must be a standard of conduct for those animals in whom intuitions have not had a dawning; and the "theory must account for the ethical goodness of those institutions of the Fijian who does not consider himself manly until he has killed some one"; and we must admit that if it were not for our intuitions we would not know that murder or stealing is wrong. Yet what is more easily deducible from the facts of common experience than that the majority of people object to being murdered, and that stealing the results of another's labor interferes with the common interests of society. Perhaps the oldest school of morals is that which recognizes as the only rule of conduct the alleged "will of God". This is in fact the only rule of conduct ever obtainable; but what is meant is the "plenary revelation of that will in the terms of human speech," and recorded in books. These alleged wills containing every possible kind of conduct instanced as standards of goodness and virtue. Dymond makes the "authority of God the sole grounds of duty" — a proposition not here disputed; but when he makes "communicated will the only ultimate standard of right and wrong" and implying said communication to be found in some certain book, we are compelled to take issue with him. This position is confuted by the fact that there would still be a source from which ideas of right and wrong could be obtained if all these alleged revelations were non-existent, for they can be derived from the concepts in the mind and have been theoretically derived by thinkers from other sources than Bibles. People knowing nothing about these revelations have constructed systems of morals beside which many of the so-called revelations become insignificant.

If it is admitted that the acts called good, conduce to human well-being and to human happiness, and that the acts called bad, conduce to the opposite conditions; and that they produce such and such effects even if we are ignorant that they are either wrong or right, then we must also admit that right and wrong has a meaning and is determinable without a knowledge of any of these revelations. It is certain that there are many creeds and revelations and contradictory beliefs. Now, by no possibility can we choose which of these numerous systems are correct without using our mind in making the choice. If we had no memory we would have no facts or concepts upon which to make the choice of belief. The one that will be chosen is that one which is most conformable to the contents of the mind, and if these contents are based upon accurate and extensive concepts of Nature, then will our choice be correct to the extent of the development of the mind. Without these concepts, we could never understand the words in which these plenary revelations are made. If we choose at all, we must choose by the aid of our concepts, and these therefore become to us the ultimate standards of Right and Wrong.

If there were no other origin for Right and Wrong than the Divine will which has been revealed to us in Conscience, in Intuition, or in Bibles, then were there no knowledge of the Divine will in the mind of a given man, the acts called bad could not affect him harmfully, and the acts called good could not affect him pleasurably — he could with impunity take poisons, commit all crimes without endangering the happiness of himself or others, and the distinction of Right and Wrong would cease to have any meaning. "But if men did not know such acts to be wrong because contrary to the Divine will, and so, in committing them, did not offend by disobedience; and if they could not otherwise know them to be wrong; then they might commit them indifferently with the acts now classed as right: the results practically considered would be the same". Thus the plenary revelation of the "will of God" as a basis of morals proves to be no basis at all. Hobbes believed that State-enactments were the sources of Right and Wrong, and Justice and Injustice could not exist until there was some power to enforce commands. If civil authority were the only source of good and bad conduct, as Hobbes asserts, then without the civil injunction forbidding it, the adulteration of medicines and foods would be ethically indifferent, and bad sanitation would have the same effect upon the occupants of a house as good sanitary appliances. To affirm that a supernaturally given Conscience is the only source of our knowledge of Right and Wrong is to deny that there exists an observable relation between acts and results — between causes and effects.

The utilitarian school of Morals of John Stuart Mill more nearly approaches a practical system than all previous attempts, and its methods will doubtless continue to be one of the factors in the true system, but it has not reached a conception of a fundamental law of ethics, nor has it pointed out the ultimate source of Right and Wrong. "Conduct is to be estimated by observation of results: when a sufficient number of cases have been considered, and it has been found that behavior of one kind works evil while the behavior of another kind works good, these kinds of behavior are to be judged as wrong and right respectively." But this assumes that those kinds of actions which are right in the present conditions of organism and environment will continue to remain so, and that the recognition of the expedient result of certain actions represents the laws underlying those actions: this is like empirical chemistry in which the actions of chemicals upon each other must always be empirically determined, and that there are no underlying laws the knowledge of which would enable us to determine beforehand the results of such and such chemical mixtures. It is to suppose that a knowledge of the forces concerned in producing chemical affinities would not be a better guide to rational chemistry than a series of disconnected experiments made to determine the results of special cases. As Herbert Spencer has so ably pointed out, the theory is "deficient in its recognition of the idea of universal causation."

It remains yet to notice that wonderful system of philosophy of one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of the age — Herbert Spencer: and that cannot be done within the limits of this paper. In his "Data of Ethics," the outcome of forty years of preparatory study, he has systemized the highest results of Modern Science, and definitely stated the present position of Philosophy, but it can be shown that his fundamental conception of the Origin of Right and Wrong, and that his conception of the Ethical Law, has not yet reached the dignity of a criterion of conduct, or of an Absolute Standard of Morality. As previously shown, his conception of Absolute Ethics and Relative Ethics, implies the further idea that there must be a fundamental law from which all these numerous and varying conditions of relative Ethics can be deduced as corollaries. In his theory of the origin of the feeling of moral obligation, and of the ethical guiding value of the sentiment of duty, he has not recognized the fact that a given state of conscientiousness is the evolved outcome of a previous condition of environment and organism which will undergo a change before the conscientiousness can adapt itself to the changed conditions — the new environment precedes the adaptation, and with reference to this new environment or to this new organic relation to the environment there has not yet developed a corresponding sense of duty, or a related conscientiousness. This adaptation to a new environment must necessarily produce not pleasure but pain, and yet the highest good of the organism will depend upon the speed with which it is able to adapt itself to the changed condition, provided that this changed condition must necessarily be a permanent one. In this, Spencer's ethical system can be no guide. His compromise as to how men as now constituted should act in the present social states of the world, with reference to the relative right of Egoism and Altruism, etc., cannot hold good in a changed social state. The aid derivable from the moral sentiments cannot be denied. The altruistic feelings are the outgrowth of a very large experience in the phylogeny of the race. But to make these feelings and these "moral aversions and approvals" within ourselves, standards of conduct and reliable guides to correct conduct, is to lose sight of that all important fact that those very feelings and sentiments were developed out of imperfect adaptation and that they did not originally produce the adaptation, and that the adaptations required from the organism at a time when these feelings have once been developed are, likely, very different from those out of which they sprang and in accordance with the needs of which they were evolved. Evolution is a constant adaptation, and need for that adaptation always precedes the adaptive changes in the organism, and must likewise be anterior to the moral sentiments developed out of them; and therefore to make the moral sentiments standards of conduct is like a patient continuing the advice of the doctor after he has recovered from the ailment for which the advice was given.

All the sentiments of duty, obligation, virtue; all the intuition, sympathies and antipathies, should be reverently recognized as general authorities, but, to quote Spencer: — "to make guidance by them adequate to all requirements, their dictates have to be interpreted and made definite by Science; to which end there must be analysis of those conditions to complete living, which they respond to, and from converse from which they have arisen. And such analysis necessitates the recognition of happiness for each and all as the end to be achieved by the fulfillment of these conditions."

The fundamental error of this position is that even when made "definite by science" these dictates are the result of conditions which may have passed away, and can therefore be no longer applicable. These dictates are the result of imperfect apprehension of those phenomena out of which they were born; and the phenomena and the conditions of the phenomena and the relations held by the phenomena at that time to the organism, were the true guides, and not the dictates developed a long time afterwards, and but imperfectly even at present. An analysis of the condition of complete living to which these dictates respond, will only serve to make more definite that which cannot after all be accepted as the ultimate criterion of conduct. The methods by which this analysis is accomplished, and by which the conclusions of this analysis is obtained, lies beyond and above these dictates of the moral sentiments. This analysis can only be made out of the concepts in the mind relating to the objects and phenomena concerned in human conduct; and these concepts lie anterior to all dictates of the moral nature and become therefore the standard by which to rectify and measure the moral sentiments. These concepts are therefore the Absolute standards of Judgment, and they depend upon accurate and extensive observation of the surroundings, and these observations develop increased exactness in proportion as the principles underlying the phenomena, and the forces causing them, are better and better understood. Such a knowledge, is a knowledge not of any one part of Nature, but of Nature as a Unit. Now our knowledge of Nature as a Unit can only be developed out of a series of simpler concepts, and these simpler concepts must be accurate or the complex concepts will not be accurate. Our only guide therefore is our concepts — these are the ultimate and absolute individual standards dependent upon and derived from the Facts and objects of Nature: but these facts cannot guide us until they become part of consciousness in the form of Concepts.

That such an analysis necessitates the recognition of happiness for each and all as the ultimate end to be achieved, cannot be gainsaid, but this is stated as though it implied a freedom of human action to choose either of two courses of action. Man is not a free agent. The bubble floating upon the river just as much chooses its course of travel upon the changing currents within the stream as man chooses his course of action.

I have said that in guiding our conduct, the Reason or Judgment referring to the concepts within the mind, chooses between two or more possible courses of action: yes, but that choice is not a matter of indifference with Nature! That CHOICE is not free; it is governed by laws just as quantitative and immutable as those of mechanics; the forces, whose effect that choice is, operate just as definitely as those of light; we choose as we please, but why do we please? Those conditions which cause this to be pleasurable, and that to be painful, lie entirely beyond the sphere of our choice. We cannot choose this or that to be pleasurable, if it is not so by its very nature and by our own nature. The mind is so constituted that it will act in response to the strongest influence and in the direction of the least resistance; and as to what shall constitute the strongest influence we have not the slightest control. Motives are weak or strong, not as we would often wish them to be, and wishing them to be different from what they are, would not make them so; and when motives affect our choice they become the determining causes of that choice — and choice cannot therefore be free. We cannot therefore select from the conditions possible to human action only those which have for their ultimate end the greatest happiness of each and all. We will select that course of action for which we have the strongest motives and inducements, whether that course of action shall or shall not result in the greatest happiness of each and all; and the question whether we will select the course which is best for all concerned depends not upon our freedom of choice, but upon the number and nature and strength of the motives and inducements we have to do so, and upon the number and nature and strength of the motives and inducements we have not to do otherwise — and this depends upon the accuracy of the Concepts we have in our memory, and upon the number of the concepts we have in our mind relating to the "things upon which we act, in the presence of which we act, and of the thing that does the acting."

The more we know about the Facts, Principles and Laws, of the things involved in the several courses of action; the more certain are we to act according to that method which will produce the greatest good to the greatest number — because the motives and inducements for doing so will increase with the extension of the number and accuracy of these concepts. Influences for good or bad, act like all other forces with an effectiveness proportional to the intensity of the force and to the time it acts.

As we increase the number of the concepts that point out the evil effects of certain actions, and the good effects of certain others we add to the causes which determine our choice, and it is therefore highly important that these concepts shall be accurate and extensive.

It has been the belief either expressed or implied in all the moral systems (not philosophies) of the world, and in all the methods of moral teaching, that we should be instructed to govern the choice of our courses of action — that by a matter of will we could select this or that course — in direct opposition to this belief, and entirely reversing the whole method and matter of teaching morality, it is stated by the G...K.., that we cannot govern our choice or our will, but that our concepts do govern our Choice and direct our will: that these Concepts which we have in our memory control and GUIDE OUR actions WITHOUT CONSULTING OUR WILL AND OUR CHOICE, and that we have nothing whatever to say about the matter. Instead of teaching our pupils in moral culture that they must choose this course of action and avoid that (a thing they cannot do unless they have sufficient motive for so doing) we should proceed to put into their minds a series of accurate Concepts of Nature, not just that particular portion of Nature concerned directly with the line of action which may be under consideration, but of Nature as a whole; for only by understanding the class to which a fact belongs, can we understand the fact; and we cannot understand the fact until we understand Nature as a Unit; and having acquired an accurate and extensive series of concepts the pupils cannot avoid acting in accordance with them, and in direct proportion as these concepts are accurate and extensive and vivid will the pupil act out the true Moral Law.

Every concept once formed in the mind becomes a tyrant; every concept becomes a master and a guide; every concept becomes an inexorable impulse; every concept becomes a stern and an absolute friend under all circumstances; every concept becomes a dim beacon light burning in the distance: but every concept IF IT BE NOT ACCURATE IN ITS COPY OF NATURE, at once becomes a snare, a pitfall and a delusion; every imperfect concept becomes our perpetual enemy and deceiver; every false concept becomes a malicious demon that haunts and misdirects all our choosings and actions; every false Fact becomes a veritable devil forever seeking our destruction.

By observation, and by the more highly developed and accurate kind of observation called experimentation and by that other form of observation called experience, we can rectify our concepts, we can eliminate the imperfect and false ones, and we can extend them in complexity and in number, and by no other way can we do this except by that systematic observation called Experiment. And these concepts once placed in the mind immediately become the arbiters of all our moral sentiments, and of all our sentiments of Right and Wrong — they become the impartial tribunal before which all our actions are judged — they become the creators of our choice and the absolute rulers of the human will! They become the ONLY possible standard, criterion, measure, and authority upon which to base, and by which to rectify our beliefs and philosophies, and by which to have our conduct guided. The ethical teaching of the G.N.K.R will consist in the systematic education of the senses and mental faculties, and the formation in the mind by experimental study of nature, a series of accurate and extensive concepts, and these concepts will guide the actions of the pupil in the proper direction, and just in proportion as they are comprehensive and accurate copies of Nature will they conform to the plan of the ALL of which they are a portion.

We may know what is wrong or right under any given circumstances and yet the motives may not be sufficiently numerous or adequately powerful to cause us to act out the knowledge thus acquired; until a series of pleasurable or painful experiences have emphasized this knowledge and rendered the concepts thereof very vivid, we may manifest an indifference about acting out the knowledge we have acquired, and the tendency to act out this knowledge even without the prompting of a series of vivid pleasurable or painful experiences, constitutes the moral disposition, and that culture which increases the tendency to act out the dictates of the reason and the judgment is called the Moral Culture. This is done by forming in the mind a concept of the weight and value of a deduction based upon carefully formed concepts, and thus causing it to become a motive of greater weight and an inducement of greater force. This requires a very accurate and extensive knowledge of Nature as a whole, and a personal contact with the objects and phenomena, in an experimental way, from which the concepts were obtained that led to the induction or the deduction of the concept pointing out a course of action, upon which perhaps the individual had no experience to enforce its adoption by choice or will, but which by virtue of this more extensive knowledge, becomes a more powerful motive than even those enforced by a considerable experience but not sanctioned by an equally well qualified induction or deduction.

It was stated on a previous page that even if we know what course of conduct would under all circumstances conduce to the greatest happiness of each and all, we would not therefore select at all times that which would be best for all concerned, but would select that line of conduct for which at the time we had the strongest motives and inducements for adopting, and the question whether we will select the course which is best for us and for all concerned, depends not upon our freedom of choice, (or how insufficient that would be) but upon the number, nature and strength of the motives and inducements we have prompting us to do so or not to do so, which depends upon the completeness of the concepts in the Memory, and the more accurate and extensive is the knowledge of ourselves and environment, the more frequently will we act according to that method which will produce the greatest happiness to the greatest number. This involves the conception of the directive tendency in Nature. This directive and designing action being the result of the Eternal Organism coextensive and coeternal with Matter and Motion, and being the necessary and inevitable and uncaused result of a condition of things that could not have been otherwise. This is not the teleogical conception of a designer independent of Nature and the universal entity; but the universal entity and the universal motion being uncaused, were eternally organized as a coherent Whole filling all Space; and this Infinite All, exhibiting as the result of motion Infinite consciousness, intellection, love, wisdom and WILL. The eternal uncaused entity filling all Space — the ENS — and the eternal uncaused motion of that entity — the MOVENS — and the eternal uncaused result (Consciousness and WILL) — the OM — were not the result of design or the product of creation or evolution.

In accordance with the great principle of the conservation of energy, and in accordance with the properties of matter and motion, and according to the definite laws of Force, this Infinite Will acts eternally in a physical and quantitative manner by actions and reactions within itself, and these actions and reactions are just as susceptible of mathematical formulation as are the laws of light, or of thought and intuition.

Life was evolved before any of the phenomena of living beings could be manifested, and the lower forms of life possessed none of those means of adaptation which we are apt to consider as the only means by which adaptation at present occurs, and the first chemical formation which was produced in the primitive seas, that possessed the qualities and characteristics of life, was not and could not have been the result of adaptation brought about by the interactions of the organism and its environments. Nature by its own mechanical actions — by virtue of the inherent properties of matter and the necessary action of the forces, produced after a long previous evolution the phenomena of living organisms. The directive process which brought about this life was the result of the condition of things; of the properties, qualities and limitations of matter and motion: a consequence of the fact that aggregations are the result of attractions between smaller aggregates, similar in kind and weight, according to the law of harmonic attraction and repulsion — producing a collection of similar kinds of matter in one place, bringing order out of heterogeneity, and heterogeneity out of homogeneity and a mutually interactive equilibrium throughout all space. The necessary tendency and the inevitable result called evolution is shown by the Laws to be the unavoidable result of the known properties of matter and motion.

If such an intelligence exists, it must be the result of a force, and if it is, it must be dependent upon the properties and laws of that force; to assume that an intelligence can exist without internal relations and the possibility of external reactions, is to assume that an immaterial nonentity, and that nothing can be capable of intellection, — an absurdity that only requires a statement to show the inherent fallacy.

The directive tendency in living organisms is shown in the manner by which they are governed in their choice, by their likes and dislikes. That is by that which produces pleasure and that which produces pain. These likes and dislikes are not the result of the volition of the organism, they are not under the control of the creature, yet it is evident that these influences have been prominent among the forces which brought about the present condition of evolved beings. They have produced adaptation and progress in the direction of more pleasure and greater capacity for pain — the susceptibility to increased suffering becoming an increasingly effective motive for more correct conduct.

When we act unconsciously and in response to that which is not "volitional"; when we act according to the promptings of the appetites and propensities which were formed for us by the Past over which we had no control; when we act in accordance with the weightiest motive which possesses its weightiness by virtue of properties and conditions over which we have no control; and when we act in accordance with the pressure of uncontrollable circumstances, it is clearly evident that we are promoting an evolution that is the result of conditions and actions beyond our control, and that the "directive" process is accomplished by Om. The method by which this adaptive reaction is brought about, is by the result of the interaction of forces upon matter each bearing quantitative relations of cause and effect, and those actions which are unconscious are not any more subject to the immutable laws of Nature than those which are the result of the so-called "volitional" action of the mind.

This directive action of Nature can be as conclusively inferred from the most complex and logical operations of the mind as from the unconscious actions and from the so-called instinctive actions. Reason itself is governed by laws as immutable as are the unconscious impulses and the actions of the propensities. If the conscious intellections guide us toward a higher and higher evolution, and if the action of the reason enables us to be guided in the more complex affairs of life so as to produce a more perfect adaptation to our surroundings, and if this adaptation is in the direction of evolution, then it can be shown that Nature has a directive action, for these propensities, impulses, reasonings, judgments, concepts, intellections and sambudhisms are part of Nature and are governed by the same forces that govern Nature. All actions of the mind are the result of effective causes, and are therefore governed by forces ulterior to the mind.

To assume that the mind acts as a free agent uninfluenced by forces over which we have no control; to aver that the mental process which directs all our actions is not controlled by adequate forces, is to abandon the idea of the inevitable sequence of cause and effect. If all mental operations are the result of efficient causes, then it follows that all the processes by which the Concepts are utilized in the direction of conduct, are governed by laws as immutable as that of gravitation. The fact that we are conscious of any mental operation does not take it out of the sphere of efficient causation, any more than does consciousness of a bodily function remove it from the domain of Law. The concepts of the mind, it will be admitted, are not matters subject to our will, or changeable at our pleasure, and upon them depends all operations of the mind; and as the result of their action (aided by the forces over which we have no control) has been the production of a more perfect adaptation and an increasing pleasure, it follows that it is perfectly safe to trust to the guidance of our concepts, for they are directive: we are compelled to trust them for without them the mind could not exist; the wisest thing we can do is to take advantage of the tendency this knowledge produces within us, and by frequent repetition of the thought, create an impulse sufficiently strong to cause us to rectify our concepts and extend them farther over the domain of Nature, for only by that means will our conduct be more correctly guided.

If this concept of the value of correct concepts has been made sufficiently vivid to you by the explanations in this paper, you will be impelled by a weighty motive to systematically study Nature, by repeated observation and experiment, in order that the more accurate Concepts thus acquired will guide you better than you have been guided in the Past. Om, has by the means of forces beyond my control produced in me the idea, and Nature has created in me a motive sufficiently strong to compel me to enunciate that which so powerfully stirs me, and You, upon hearing it, will be influenced by it to the extent of your understanding, and it will slowly influence you to take a more accurate observation of Nature, and you will also influence others to do the same — and this is one of the methods Nature uses to "direct" the evolution of life. A new concept once formed in the mind becomes from that time on a persistent adviser, a loving counsellor, and an ever present guide.

All creatures seek enjoyment, and gratification, and pleasure; all creatures avoid or try to avoid pain: pain and pleasure increase as the complexity of the organism increases — if the adaptation is imperfect there will be more pain, and if the adaptation is perfect there will be more pleasure — pleasures become more and more perfect as evolution advances, if it were not so the reverse of evolution would be the result. It can be shown that the consequences of a wrong act affect all creatures in that environment.

These adaptations which are made by the actions of the unconscious elements in Nature, and by the actions of the unconscious elements in mind, are the results of inherited qualities and tendencies and relate chiefly to the perpetuation of the species, and do not perform the directive action of the higher faculties in enabling the individual to accomplish an adaptation to a new condition of the environment. The appetites and propensities; these sensations and emotions; these cravings and longings; these antipathies and dislikes, are as important as any of the rest. The sexual passions serve to maintain the perpetuation of the species, which without the strong instinctive cravings of the sexual impulses might become extinct. These powerful impulses subserve a different end than those which are the outgrowth of the concepts; the latter enable us to have our conduct regulated in a manner that will produce adaptation to new or sudden changes in our environment. An inherited tendency cannot do this: the change precedes the adaptation or the need of it, and the intuitions or the conscience cannot develop a sentiment about the matter until the changed conditions have been encountered and completely or partly overcome.

The immediate excitant of all "volitional action" is the enjoyment of pleasure or the avoidance of pain: but the question of Optimism and Pessimism can in no wise affect the general one of the ultimate rightfulness and wrongfulness of actions with reference to the continuance or discontinuance of individual or race life. The argument of Spencer, that pleasurable acts are life-promoting and painful acts are life-destroying, and that in accordance with the predominance of the pleasurable acts the evolution of life has taken place — the predominance of the painful experiences would have produced the opposite result of evolution, viz: devolution or retrogression. Life is worth living "in proportion as the sum of its experiences are more pleasurable than painful," and the tendency of evolution is the production of creatures capable of enjoying more and more happiness, as the adaptation becomes more perfect. But suppose that the downward course of evolution has once been reached by any given species, and that the sum of experiences were more painful than pleasureable, would not a theory of race extinction be the proper one? Perhaps in the light of the remote future it were better to extinguish all life? Admit, for the sake of the argument, the sum of the experiences were more undesirable than desirable, would universal extinction then be the wisest course of action? It matters not how we may theorize about the matter — the thing that we will do lies not in our hands: the predominant motives which will after all determine our actions are formed by nature and these are formed according to the directive tendency of evolution, and work out the continuance of life in the species as long as the sum of pleasurable experiences exceed the painful ones: when the reverse condition of things is brought about in the environments, the race becomes extinct. By no possibility could THE LIFE in the universe be extinguished.

By no possibility could life be exterminated from the face of the earth, and by no possibility could thinking beings be exterminated. If all the living things in the entire domain of Space were at this moment annihilated, the immutable forces of Nature would again produce the same condition of things — would again evolve the multitudinous genera of plants and animals; and a doctrine of Pessimism would only end, defeating its own purposes — viz: — the production of less misery; for it would keep the earth filled with creatures in the lower scale of evolution, in the more imperfect adaptation to their surroundings than was attained by the thinking species which brought about the universal destruction. These creatures would have to ascend the scale of slow evolution, and when once again arrived at the philosophical abilities of Spencer — a stage in which the powers and means and motives for more perfect adaptation are increasing in a geometrical ratio — would again concoct a practical Pessimism, resulting in the universal destruction of those species which had nearly attained the Nirvana of contented and happy adaptation to their environments. Optimism is the compulsory belief of the universe. Life must be accepted as an inexorable Fact. Suicide runs counter to the direction of Nature. If life as it now exists is not worth living, then it is our opportunity to make it so.

The old question of the nature of truth — the eternal riddle of the Sphinx — must be decided by methods other than that of dialectical discussions concerning the relative truth of Conceptualism and Nominalism. We need not fear that we are liable to choose the wrong more frequently than the right, as a race, — we need not fear but that the forces that brought life up from inorganic matter to the capacity of consciousness, and from that, to the reasoning and deductive abilities of modern speculators — that the forces which of their own accord have produced all the present phenomena of life, mind and society, are going to forsake us from this time on. There came a time when tools and instruments first added to the progress of the race — a time when fire was first used, and a time when language first made it possible to transmit to descendants the memories and knowledge of the past; and these acquirements slowly made by the human race are not the only ones in store! What a vast change in the conditions of the race must have been brought about by the ability to use tools, make fires, and hold intelligent conversation! Tools and language — what have they not done for the human race? Do not these two words sum up the instruments of progress from animals to man? Do they not make possible all art and philosophy? What will be the third gift by nature to man, of a kind at all comparable to these two? Are there not evidences about us, pointing out in what direction this third gift will be found?

The directive tendency of the unconscious in guiding us toward a higher evolution can only be made more efficient by bringing about within ourselves and our environments, a more perfect reciprocation — by making ourselves more susceptible to the influences of these unconscious tendencies — a matter that will belong to the culture. The conscious action of the mind operates through the reason and the judgment, by means of the concepts in the mind. Sense impressions often control our actions before we have had time to reason about the matter — a sort of reflex action. The larger the amount of such action in an organism — the more numerous the mental traits which have become unconscious (no longer voluntary), the more highly developed will the organism be. The more the consciousness affects the hitherto involuntary actions of the organism, the more highly developed will be that creature.

The object has not been to give in this paper a statement of the Golden Law of Morals; but to indicate in what direction it will be found, and of what nature it will be. The Law will not receive definite expression until by means of the Hierarchy the necessary correct and extensive concepts have been acquired. Sufficient has herein been said, if understood, to demonstrate the need of such a law, and to show its nature and comprehensiveness, and to point out the ONLY way by which it can be obtained.

There can be no question that any theory of Conduct involving a belief in the free-agency of the mind is erroneous, and cannot be applied to the betterment of the morality of the human species. As long as we think that conduct is merely a matter of free choice, and that a choice the reverse of good is the result of an evil disposition — so long as we believe that all that is necessary to make men good is to tell them what is wrong and right and they will choose accordingly, or that an immoral disposition is capable of being suddenly transformed into a moral one, or that it depends upon the training the moral sentiments have received — so long as such opinions are held, it will be impossible to properly bring about the conditions which will produce correct conduct — or to systemize moral training, or even to point out in what such training consists. In the maintenance of life — in the gratification of the appetites or passions — in avoiding dangers — in performing bodily functions — all such actions become more perfectly adapted to the production of happiness, in proportion as the organism has a more perfect and extensive knowledge of itself and its surroundings. The bird suddenly introduced into new surroundings flies against a telegraph wire, or against a windowpane, and through ignorance of its surroundings, either kills or cripples itself. Or dying from thirst, it flies across the desert towards a mirage which seems nearer than the distant stream which it might have reached, and like many highly organized men under exactly the same circumstances, succumbs to its lack of knowledge of its surroundings. A knowledge of its surroundings could have been obtained in no other way than by acquiring concepts, from simple Perceptions and Sensations.

Without the senses the mind could have no concepts. Without the senses the mind could not possess consciousness. Without the senses therefore the mind could have no memory — for there would be nothing to remember. Without the senses the mind could not have developed. Without Consciousness and Concepts the mind could exercise neither reason nor judgment, and could not conceive of axioms, or picture them in thought. Neither induction nor deduction would be possible. The sympathetic emotional states produced within the mind by the action of sambudhism could awaken no response, unless there had been a previous emotional experience of some kind (not necessarily intense or comprehensive) to produce in the mind concepts of such feelings. Just so it would be impossible for sambudhism to reproduce in the mind, those emotional and mental states combined, which have been called intuitions, instinct, etc., brought about by heredity, not in the transmission of, ideas or memories, but in the transmission of a structure capable of sympathetically responding to those pitches of etherisim which lie at the causative basis of thought. Until there has been a concept of conscious pain or pleasure — until there has been a feeling of hunger recognized by the corresponding sense, there can be no memory of a concept of craving; and the stimulation of the masticatory apparatus produced by this hunger, will not bring about the act of nursing until there has been such a concept, for the action of the sambudhism to produce an excitation of the will.

The senses are not the guides — for they are easily subject to Maya (illusions), but the concepts formed by their aid are more accurate than their sensual presentations, because, by a series of related observations, and by concepts formed deductively and inductively, it has been found wherein their inaccuracies exist. The end of the stick in the water is found to be not bent, by a series of more accurate observations, i.e, by a series of more accurate concepts. The material for the rectification of the concepts must always be inductively and deductively derived from other concepts, and thus it appears that concepts rectify each other by the aid of the operations of intellection. Mind grows and develops in the act of accumulating more concepts. Brains cannot exhibit functions either in intellection or sambudhism, until the organs have been developed for their manifestation, and therefore it appears that hereditary structural modifications are differently influenced by the operations of the Universal Sensorium, or at least by different pitches of the same force, in unison with the special developments transmitted.

Until there has developed a mind, Ethics cannot come into play in the guidance of conduct. The mind can in no way guide the individual until it has acquired concepts of itself and of Nature. And the adaptation of means to ends, which ethical conduct implies, can take place only by means of the concepts. Theories and philosophies and rules of guidance, all depend upon the accuracy of these concepts for their own correctness. The fundamental duty of any creature — that duty the performance of which must precede all others — and upon which the correctness of all others depends — that duty which makes other duties possible, IS THE ACQUIREMENT OF CORRECT CONCEPTS OF SELF, AND ENVIRONMENT. This is a Rule that will change as the creature changes and as the environment changes. It will be a perpetual revelation. There is a constant change in the environment of man — political and social; customs are perpetually undergoing protean transformations, — foods and climate are never stable for any great length of time, — and there must be a continual source of truth — and that source is the augmentation and rectification of concepts. There can be no other source. This study of Nature gives two simultaneous results: — more knowledge, and MORE MIND. This is the concrete form of the Golden Law of Morals; by its method all moral theories of the Past were formed, and by its method all the theories of the Future will be formed; and as the concepts in the minds of the philosophers become more exact and more extensive, the theories of duty will become truer and better — but this concrete expression embraces the underlying duty of duties, and contains the elements of eternal adaptation suitable to all creatures, to all worlds, and to all times. It gives to all reasoning creatures the only possible guide to Truth, and is in itself the highest truth possible to any development. These Concepts are the Eternal Moral Guides; the unimpeachable Oracles; the ONLY Criterion of Right and Wrong. Nature teaches and guides her children by means of these Concepts: this Teacher is the true Savior of mankind — omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

Having acquired all necessary Concepts, and having also a definite knowledge of all that constitutes correct adaptation, there remains another condition to be noticed, viz: the judgment from a sufficient number of Concepts may have correctly decided the proper course of action and yet, through indifference, carelessness or laziness, or through lack of imaginative power in depicting the future consequences of such acts, we are guilty of either commission or omission, and consequently suffer the consequences, either immediate or remote. Perhaps we may have had a distinct knowledge of the consequences and may yet prefer the temporary gratification and ease, to future pleasure which we might have enjoyed if the duty had not been neglected; but no matter what the cause may be, the fact is, that the performance of duty is not always commensurate with the knowledge of the subject, herein lies the Moral Disposition. The tendency to act out the directions of the concepts, or rather the dictates of the Judgment derived from the concepts, constitutes the Moral Disposition; while the tendency to neglect such promptings, is the immoral disposition.

The inherited or acquired tendency to act out the promptings of the mind, in accordance with that which is believed to be the best, constitutes Morality. That which we believe to be right is that which we will always do if we have the moral disposition. Belief depends for its truth upon the accuracy and the extent of our knowledge of Nature. In accordance with this belief there develops a sentiment called Conscience, which becomes a powerful impulse in the direction of our actions, and it is reliable only to the extent that the knowledge upon which it was based is reliable.

The training of the Moral disposition can be accomplished by three methods: First, through the Intellections: Second, through Sambudhism: Third, through Psychism.

The cultivation of the habit of acting according to the dictates of reason must be the result of a large experience, but the more that experience has been systemized, the more effective will it prove. It involves the careful study of the sequences of acts from the biological standpoint, the ability to trace to their sources the causes of all personal pain and sorrow, and the consequent ability to predict the result of all acts. In this course of instruction animals and neighbors and self become the objects for a series of object lessons. The Moral Disposition must be founded upon an experimental knowledge of the immutability of natural laws — and upon their comprehensiveness: including within the province of the forces all phenomena — that a result is inevitable and inexorable. The principle of the conservation of energy, and that of the motion of all matter in the direction of the least resistance, and that of the vibratory transformation of the Forces in the production of evolution, lies at the bottom of all conceptions of Moral Duty. To base a standard of right and wrong upon that which cannot be such a standard is to vitiate all reasoning upon the subject — and to call that a crime which is not a crime, is to destroy the confidence of the child (for it is in youth when impressions are vivid and lasting that moral culture should commence) in the immutability of nature; for it will soon be observed that evil consequences do not always flow from a so-called evil act, either immediately or remotely, and one such instance is enough to disprove a law. Show a scientist a single instance of perpetual motion — of the production of energy from nothing, and he will immediately abandon all belief in that law which is one of the crowning glories of the present century — the principle of the Persistence of Energy — and show a child a single instance wherein the violation of what is called a moral law is not followed by evil consequences, and he will, without a knowledge of logic, deduce the fact that right and wrong do not, according to the system of his instructor, produce certain consequences. One contradictory fact will overthrow any theory — and an evil result produced by a supposed moral act, will destroy all complete confidence in the law, which requires that act to be called moral. Its teachings, at first lose all force in guiding actions of the child, and then the child is left without a knowledge of what should be a criterion of conduct. Nature inevitably follows every act with its natural result. A wrong act is followed by consequences peculiar to that act, and this result never fails to follow; but when we invade the mind of a child with a belief that certain things are crimes when they are not, or that certain things are necessary to happiness, when they can in no way affect it, is asking the mind to admit, after experience to the contrary, that there is an inevitable relation between cause and effect. To call a thing wrong, that we cannot understand why it is so, is to take away nearly all the guiding weight of such knowledge. A wrong act will be followed by consequences, and prayer or entreaty cannot change or avert it; the supposition that it can, weakens the guiding power of correct knowledge, and takes the attention away from that which could tend to alleviate the effect. An artificial standard of right and a list of artificial wrongs, perverts the moral integrity and poisons the moral disposition of the child. Nature never fails to inflict the results of a mistake, and never fails to reward a good act by the good consequences which inevitably follow such an act, and the fundamental idea of causation involves as its ground work the immutability of the relation between cause and effect — and the idea that this immutability cannot change in any other possible condition of things. This fundamental Moral law must include the same idea of immutable causation.

An experience must be given the child in which there are no variations from the inevitable sequence of cause and effect. The child must acquire a complete confidence in the integrity of Nature, and this he can only do experimentally, — a knowledge that every effect must have an efficient cause cannot be taught as a didactic fact, the reason why must be known, and the modus operandi seen. Ignorance excuses no one from the consequences of an act (the strongest inducement for learning about our surroundings; but not the best inducement) — rather have a child perform duty with a view toward the attainment of pleasurable results than with the view of avoiding bad results.

Teaching others improves our surroundings. In making society better and kinder we are adapting our environments to ourselves. The greatest crime is that which distorts our knowledge of Nature; — it is the unpardonable sin to falsify a fact. It is very wicked to destroy any of the senses. Sickness is a grievous punishment for wrong actions; not only do we suffer the pain and attendant danger, but we lose that development which we otherwise might have had during that time.

Immorality is more often a disease than a lack of Knowledge — and the determination of the causes, symptoms, and cure of such diseases, will constitute an important work of the Culture.

Attention must again be called to the fact that there has not herein been made an attempt to express the Golden Law of Morals, or to outline the curriculum of Moral Training, or to even hint at what is meant by the Culture of PANTOGNOMOS. An idea has been given of the Moral Law in its most concrete form, and what is meant by the moral disposition — and that is all. The object is to outline an Ethical System upon the basis that Mental Concepts lie at the basis of all thought, and that the extension of these concepts lies at the basis of a complete knowledge of anything, and of a knowledge of All that Is. That heredity of structure makes possible, by means of sambudhism, all that is called instinct and intuition — but that these faculties depend for their presentation and meaning upon the concepts in the mind. An ethical system based upon a knowledge of the fact that the will is not free, — and that we cannot guide our conduct, but that we must take advantage of those conditions which will cause our actions to be more correctly guided. That there is a training for the moral disposition as well as for the musical disposition, — that there is a training for the integrity as well as for the reliability of memory, and that this training will consist in the application of easily ascertainable rules and laws that cannot be doubted.

The application of the forces for the production and maintenance of healthful mental conditions, will directly contribute to the production of moral integrity. A knowledge of the action of the forces in producing the phenomena of mind, when once all the data have been experimentally determined, will permit of the application to the needs of the mind and morals, a system of practice, that will as effectually revolutionize its present status as did the use of tools and language revolutionize the condition of the early mammalia.

Systems of moral philosophy have been devised with the organs of moral function left out, and in complete ignorance of the forces concerned in the production of mental phenomena — that such systems could not have determined a fundamental law is not to be wondered at — the wonder is, that so much has been accomplished with the mind, while we were in complete ignorance of the forces concerned in its maintenance and operation. Mind is the result of Force, and being such, must be able to reproduce in another form the amount of energy required to cause the effect called intellection. That such an effect is an oscillatory or a vibratory motion within the nucleoli of the brain, is demonstrable; — and that such oscillations or vibrations could not take place without producing in the etheric mediate, transmissive waves, is also demonstrable; and that such waves, produce upon like aggregates in other brains, a similar mental and emotional condition, is also demonstrable; and that the pitch of these vibrations is a force in which all minds are constantly immersed. Every thought represents transformed forces, — every moral impulse is equal to a given amount of heat or electricity, — and every joy and every pain is the result of mechanical energy. The will acts, because it is acted upon, with an equivalent amount of energy to that which it represents in return; we do not will, the forces will for us; we do not choose, the forces choose for us; and we do not think, the forces think for us and make us conscious, and if we appreciate and understand that our concepts guide our action, we will at once seek a more thorough knowledge of Nature. The concept that such knowledge is of infinite value will be the impulse causing us to study Nature, — and this impulse will operate with a power in proportion to the intensity of our power of thinking, and in proportion to the development of our moral disposition: and desiring better environments we will teach this truth to others knowing that it will also cause them to study Nature and thus better themselves, and the idea once started, it will continue to work out the directive course of the Infinite All — for it is one of the methods used by Nature in bringing about a higher evolution. This implies that Nature is filled with an intelligent purpose — at any rate, the directive action of the forces are the result of conditions capable of producing intelligence. Such an intelligence would be incapable of deriving motion from nothing, and if it derived motion from the universe it must depend upon those forces for its intelligence: — Such an intelligence would be incapable of destroying or of creating a single ultimate particle of which it is composed, or of adding to or of taking from the universe any of its present energy, and hence it appears that such an intelligence would be governed by laws and properties of motion and matter, and governed in its thought by the same anxious and numerical principles — the forces must act in the same manner as they do, and follow the same laws, and therefore produce the same result as if created by a being independent of Nature, — and this intelligence must itself be the result of order, harmony and transformation, brought about by the condition of things, and it could not have been otherwise.

To place the purpose, anterior to the cause of that purpose, is to abandon the idea of causation. To assume that the causation tendency in Nature is intelligent, is to say that the directive tendency directs itself. To say that it is an intelligence independent of Nature, must involve the supposition that it is incapable of action and reaction upon nature, and that it does so without inherent energy and without consuming energy.

If it has action or reaction upon Nature, it must have the relation of cause and effect of a quantitative Nature. To those who are in need of a temporary support while mastering the new conception and while discontinuing their belief in the anthropomorphic ideas of God; and to the masses who cannot attain the highest reaches of the logical faculty without a long system of preparatory culture; and to all those who still retain lingering remains of a former fetichism, it may be well to supply their former belief temporarily with the conception that Space is filled with a vast coherent aggregation of matter of a dual nature, consisting of an atomic organism of galaxies floating in an atomolic organism of ether globes, and that it is thus analogous to those living organisms which we know to be conscious and intelligent, and that this Infinite Organism has the power of renewing itself continually. That, as far as we know, intelligence increases with the complexity of the structure, and that this Infinite Whole that fills all space is infinitely complex compared with any living organism, and must therefore be infinitely intelligent. That as a Whole it produces evolution and order and this shows direction — which is in keeping with the assumption of Personal Theism apart from Nature. This Infinite All is Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient — the first and the last — the creator of worlds, and all they contain, and in every respect the giver of every good. This more rational conception based upon natural principles, and for a thorough comprehension of which there will be required a careful study and a thorough knowledge of all the Facts, Principles and Laws of Nature, will induce people to make such a study without fear of losing too much of their tendency to fetichism at once, and by virtue of such an unimpeded study of phenomena, their logical faculties will develop, and their minds will acquire confidence and knowledge based upon incontrovertible experience; and then it will be possible to show that this Infinite Organism, of a dual structure, is simply the Body and Soul of which Om is the Spirit, and that its directive effect upon the universe is the result of the very properties of Matter and Motion, and that by the very nature of intelligence it must act in accordance with definite Laws. Only when Men have an experimental familiarity with the phenomena of Nature, and with the nature and laws of force, can the main laws of science become certain to them — and until they are absolutely certain of the principal contents of science, they cannot freely admit principles with which they are comparatively unacquainted, to replace that in which the world so long believed. When once these concepts and principles have become the most certain of all truths, then is the time to apply them to the logical induction of the Purposive action of the universe. The power that governs the universe is one incapable of caprice or mistake, it is incapable of Right or Wrong in the usual sense; it is as inexorable and as unchangeable as a mathematical relation — as Eternal as Duration, and as Infinite as Space! Then will come the time to develop the majestic conception of the Infinite Will and of Om, as taught in the Mahopanishada.

Knowledge constitutes the What; Science the How; and Philosophy the Why. The Why must be comprehended before a comprehensive Moral philosophy is possible. If we knew all the What, the How would be plain; if we understood thoroughly the How, the Why would appear. Space can have no why — the Entity within Space can have no why: they must have been beginningless and uncaused, and if uncaused how can there be a why? There can be an Eternal Cause but absolutely no First Cause. Space, Matter, and Motion, must have been uncaused — think of this long enough and you will see for yourself why, better than words can explain. The history of science will be the history of true philosophy — the history of dialectics and speculations is quite another matter. Plausibility is no argument of the truth of a proposition. From a false major premise there can be developed a perfectly logical system of error. It has been said that England lost her liberties through a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles. If there is an ultimate why to the universe it lies outside of the limits of the thinkable. Parallel lines will not meet however far they may be produced why? — Can you conceive it to have been otherwise? Would they be parallel if it were otherwise? Why was there anything else except Space? Could there have been a why to this in absence of purposeless action? Could there have been a purpose if there had been nothing except Space? To have been a purpose there must have been a time when it was not — but with reference to the entity in space this could not have been. There could therefore have been no why to the existence of the All.

Humanity may be likened to a great ship freighted with the lives and the destinies of human beings. We find ourselves on the ship not knowing from whence we came nor whither we are going. One class of men are studying the ship and its operations, and spend their time in improving its machinery and in making the voyage a pleasurable one. They are satisfied with the what and the how. There is another class that is chiefly concerned in learning where the harbor lies to which we are sailing? They accept the fact of existence and are little concerned with the how, they devote all their energies to the whither. There is another class trying to find out the Why of all this trouble and stir; they admit the what, and the how, and think they understand the whither, but they would like to know the purpose of all this ceaseless creation, transformation, and dissolution: and that purpose has been variously interpreted. One of the objects is correctly expressed according to the belief of the G.N.K.R in the statement of Department No. 1 of the G.....R. But if axioms have any foundation in truth, and if the mind as at present constituted is capable of drawing conclusions, then it is certain that the Why of the Existence of ENS, MOVENS, and OM cannot be known.

There can be no Why. But there can be a purpose! To those who have a fair share of correct concepts within their minds, and who calmly think thereon for a sufficient length of time, this will all be plain.

What is the object of life? — The wise will understand: it is an opportunity!

What is the purpose of life? — The wise will understand: it is a fate!

If there is no choice can there be duty? And can there be right and wrong? Do not creatures cling to pleasure-producing acts as they cling to the warm sunshine on a cold day? Is it their duty to remain in the sunshine and keep from freezing, rather than go off in the cold shade where the wind sweeps and the ice forms? Do we not avoid evil as the rotifera avoid acid-tinctured water? The external forces set up an internal process of repulsion. Consciousness enables us to detect improper adjustments, memory to collect experiences, reason to organize, previse and deduce; and are not these adaptive processes, forces over which we have no control? And has not the mind had produced within it a recognition that certain influences produce better adaptations than others, and have we not within us a power of reaction upon the environment in accordance with the nature of these recognitions? Has not Nature produced in us a mind, and in that mind, the recognition of the fact that Concepts are our only guides, and will we not therefore accurately ascertain and extend our concepts; and will we not cling to this knowledge as the notochord (amphioxus) clings to the mud which protects and feeds it?

What caused all the mistaken theories of the Past? Incorrect Concepts. What has caused us all our mistakes? Incorrect or incomplete Concepts! How shall we get correct Concepts? — Experimentally studying Nature.

At an early stage of gestation the brain of a child is a blank; bearing within itself the countless modifications of Heredity, — and these transmitted physical peculiarities are capable of sympathetically responding to Etheric influences of the same kind as those to which the mind organs of its ancestors responded, and thus through the action of Sambudhism is produced those mental and emotional conditions upon which depends the so-called instinctive and intuitive actions, whose nature and influence is interpretable only by means of the Concepts developed by the Sensations and Perceptions within the mind of the creature: — concepts varying in kind and degree with the peculiar development of that creature's sense-organs, and with the peculiar structural formation of the brain and nervous system.

The first sensation experienced by an evolving creature is the first revelation made by Nature to that organism, and the memory of that sensation is the first concept — the Unit of that wondrous superstructure called Intellect. Until there has been developed either a sensation of Pain or of Pleasure, until there exists the cravings or the enjoyments of an appetite, consciousness cannot dwell within the organism — and until that function has manifested itself there can be no mental condition capable of being excited by Sambudhism: the brain may indeed sympathetically respond, but until there exists in Consciousness, experiences or concepts, this responsive action can have no recognizable meaning — can relate to no experience or to no object within the domain of the individual consciousness. These Concepts begin to be formed in utero; and at birth the sensations of touch, hunger, thirst, fatigue, heat and cold, pleasure and pain, have already opened to the mind of a child the wondrous volume of Consciousness and Existence. And then, Sight reveals the myriad forms of Nature and of Art — the picturesque, the lovely and sublime; and throws upon the canvas of the brain the disposition, symmetry, shape and color of all that lies exterior to the Self; and Hearing, that gives us all there is of word and speech, of melody, tone, and accents sweet from those we loved, when sorrows first were soothed by sympathy and song. And then those wondrous phantoms of the mind — those Ghosts of all the things which Consciousness has felt, smelled or tasted, heard or seen, are conjured from the Past by the weird necromanncy of Memory; and by Reason marshalled into ranks, and groups and files, and before that great Tribunal where Judgment hears the Pro and Con — where evidence is taken of all the outer world and its relations to the Kingdom of the mind (which is one of the smaller municipalities of the great Kingdom of Nature), and when decision is rendered by the concensus of the Faculties and Concepts, the decree is left to the care of the Will, and if that be weak, negligent or diseased, the organism suffers injury or becomes immoral. If these spectres give false testimony of the Non-Ego — if they do not correctly represent the objects from which they were derived, they become not only dangerous deceivers, but the mind is truly obsessed by malicious devils; and they must be exorcised and cast out by the sacred ceremonies of Observation and Experiment, before the Ego can obtain reliable information from the Non-ego for the safe guidance of the organism.

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