The making of the universe; evolution the continuous process which derives the finite from the infinite

Contents

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I The General Outlook 7

II Creation as a Correlated Process . . 21

II Creation As A Correlated Process

HISTORY teaches us that the earliest instinct or inference of mankind taught them to believe in their dependence upon conscious Power higher than themselves. That belief was, and is, the basis of all religions. Instead of becoming outgrown with the increase of knowledge, it has been widening and rising into a confirmed assurance that this Power is supreme Mind, God, until there is almost universal acceptance of the stupendous certainty that essential existence, mind or matter, must have been ever existent.

That the essence or substance (synonymous terms) of actual Being could be created is discredited, is unthinkable, and is not believed by anyone who has seriously investigated this impossibility.

But science is practically based upon a concrete belief in substance material, or mental, or both, and very largely the dealings of science are with the material side of things.

Science treats its substances as actors doing their

own work; it follows and describes their processes

and the obtained results; its tests, its comparative verifications are generally substantive. Hence, science is more or less inclined towards materialism. It was in the past much more than it is in the present.

A correlated process is equal and opposed action and reaction, in which modes of energizing may be mutually exchanged without change in the amount of force on either side, but with increase of modes and their resulting values on both sides — thus guaranteeing an ever-advancing variety of desirable acquirements.

This theory claims that it is a possible explanation of the method by which the Creator literally might have evolved the existing universe, material and mental; that the accepted facts of progressive Nature can be fairly interpreted by this theory to be actual derivatives from the absolute of the relative; of limited and lowered individual beings from the ever-existing One, the unlimited, all-comprehending, eternal Unity.

Process, as a total, is continuous and unending, but it cooperates in the relative as local, temporary pulses or waves of action and reaction, and some of its results move onward in endless threads of changes. Hence, for illustration, when a ball rebounds from a wall, this reaction has not used up the sending force; the correlative method of cooperation has resulted in more or less scattering and awakening of vibratory action of several varieties

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in the general environment. The cooperators have not lost or gained in quantity of force and have gained in quality, in advancing modifications of process. It is the nature of all opposite uniting actions of all kinds to multiply, modify varieties of the kinds to which the actions belong.

The general tendency has been to assume that the Creator of the universe has Himself directly done the main part of the work of universe-makings. As Author, yes; as immutable builder, no.

The present Essay claims that essential Being is, as generally believed, ever-existing Mind; that the wisdom and good will of omniscient Mind devised, put in cooperation, sustains and aids in some definite way and degree, often directs or inspires and cooperates with the creative process which has been in age-long interaction and is destined to continue everlastingly. The act of creation produced a correlated process which internally, persistently, indivisibly individualizes every primary or least unit of the whole universe.

In other words, every least unit of Nature has an added, an imposed innate correlation, which structurally conditions it as a relative, individualized being. The countless myriads of relative least units of Nature have like constitutions. Each unit is (from the nature of its constitution) innately balanced, self-active and self-defensive; but it is also lowered, limited, and, for all fruitful action, is constitutionaliy dependent upon cooperation with its peers, having like finite constitutions.

All fruitful finite action, of all kinds, is cooperation, interaction ; and yet every unit acts of itself and for itself, its substance is ever-existing substance; its force is ever-existing force, while its modes are ever increasing.

Creation is thus a method of process ; and as process in itself is ongoing and unending, so also is the method itself ongoing and unending. Finite beings, finite substance and force, remain in and of the absolute (although to all of their processes, whether motions which are modes of material process, or feelings modes of life and minds with their living consciousness), the processes are all finite cooperation.

There is nothing disturbing in the nature of process, which is a modification of the changing, not a modification of the permanent in Being, whether that being is limited or unlimited. In the ever-existing One, modifications — unrealizable by us because all of ours arise in correlations and are only half due to ourselves — in Deity must be independent, wholly self-evolved modifications of process.

In the nature of things, modifications of either type cannot interfere with essential existence or essential force, neither of which can be increased or diminished.

Force — itself never changing in amount, yet en-

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tirely progressive in its inmost character — is the everlasting principle of acquirement, whether its activities are absolute or relative. This is the comprehensive but the bare cold statement of theory. Later I hope to be able to show the reasonableness of it as a theory, something of its internal consistency, and its ability to explain multitudes of Nature's leading facts. Doubtless, truth and untruth will be found together; but is there truth enough to make it worthy of serious attention? Nature is suspended in utter dependence upon absolute wisdom and good will; but until its correlations are annihilated it must remain everlastingly as to its individualities and their natural processes and as a universe with its ever-increasing accumulation of past motion and feeling of many types, whether for good or evil.

The making of the universe as it exists to-day is assured, whatever has been the method of its making; and the elements of its ongoing are still in progress for the production of good or evil. But surely the all together desirable will soon or late prevail.

The attempt to explain such infinite and intricate problems may seem preposterous. The " audacity of it " is recognized. The wise adage " fools rush in where angels fear to tread " has been taken to heart; but if head and heart are both enlisted, one must speak and take the consequences.

The shattered earlier religious creeds must find satisfactory new support for their later evolved modifications. As surely as God exists, they exist, waiting to be recognized, to become currently admitted.

Nature, the universe, mental and material, is and always has been humanity's first hand discovery of truth. No sincere effort, however inadequate, can be wholly worthless.

Is Force the efficient impelling principle in all activity? And is force inseparable from essential Being, Infinite and finite? Some conclusive answer to this problem is imperative, and conclusive if consistently solved. It is the key to the interpretation of Nature.

Force is an entity inseparable from essential existence. Then is the cutting off of process, the actual extinguishing of any process, the direct action of force, — a conceivable possibility? As we cannot think of force as a new created entity, as an actual something produced from another something or produced from nothing, so process, which is the function, the action of force, which, in the finite is the cooperation of unlike combining modes of action, must be equally indestructible per se. As phenomena, it melts into the no longer perceived through the senses. No mode of evolution is, no growth is, directly sense perceived. We recognize it only after its work is done; but insight into the

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nature of relationships and thus inhering dependencies, jointly produced, and thus allied results impel us directly to the legitimate inference, to the only logical conclusion.

So long as force continues to be an inseparable property of the ever-existing substance of Being absolute and relative, all force-impelling activities must continue to take up new cooperations by the way; and by exchanging side-tracked energizing with adapted coworkers on any side widely and more widely scatter the vivifying of social active copartnerships.

Ill

THE RELATIVE MANYSIDEDNESS OF NATURE

THE universe is immensely complex. Its varieties of forms, sizes, properties of its substances, and still more the various phases of its innumerable processes, are so intricate and mutually interdependent that, starting from any one point of view a fairly consistent theory of related truth can be more or less reasonably maintained. It can explain varieties of related truths or partial truths. Truth is truth, even when mixed with error; but a half-truth may also lead to the most misleading untruths. Truth itself is complex.

The whole truth of anything would require every point of view internal and external of that one thing and all of its relationships and changings, in order to perfectly comprehend its whole nature and its functions. The whole truth of the universe would enlist outlook from all standpoints, and an intelligence able to unravel all complications and be able to reason in perfectly logical sequences. Humanity is still very far from having attained to that amount or perfection of knowledge (if it ever can

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attain it), but surely it may be ever gaining undoubted truth. This includes the rejection of the interfering untruth. We know a practically unbroken gain of fully accepted knowledge as to the nature of Nature in many of its departments is truth verified in many different ways. For example: Can anyone fairly informed doubt that the earth is a member of our solar system, that its revolution on its own axis produces day and night, and that its circuit round the sun defines our year?

The unreasoned early view, judging from superficial appearances, had a stable fixed position for the earth and the sun traveling over it by day and under it by night.

It is evident that to gain unmixed truths not only eyesight for appearances is needed, but insight as well into the relations that exist between the things that appear. The relations of things cannot be perceived by means of any of the senses; but they can be perceived by that reasoning intelligence that may be termed insight. The concepts of insight are as easy of comprehension as are the perceptions of the senses.

For example: a straight line is the shortest distance between two points ; or, reversing it, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That group of dependent relations, as relations, must be recognized by insight into the nature of the things. One must first know the nature of points and of a straight line, then he is assured that it is a true proposition. The objection, that Nature has no straight lines, could in no way falsify that proposition. That the human hand cannot produce a straight line does not discredit it. But what are the direct lines of light that come through the ether, if they are not straight lines?

The truth of that statement of the two points is an internal relationship and expresses the necessary mutual relations between them. No possible intervention could change that or any other truths of natural relationships except by changes in the terms related, that is by changes in the things themselves.

Shut in as we are in our outlook through the senses, which are confined to one short, narrow strata of all-sided, almost infinite dimensions, mental insight into the relations of things, supplemented by reasoning (which is both inductive and deductive), often is, if passably well managed, more reliable than direct perception and immensely larger in outreach. The senses may blunder, may accept illusions. Insight perceives both the ideal, the real, and their inherent changeless and changing relationships, and when the idea and the actual coincide their truth cannot be doubted. The entire nature of finite mind is attuned by its correlativity with matter which is also made actual and finite through correlation.

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It is only because physical Nature made its first appeal to dawning mental recognition that insight remained more tardy in self assertion than sight and became less precocious than sensation, practically is not yet largely used by all minds. Given their entire data, first principles, axioms, are at once stones in the foundation and keys in the rising arches of knowledge. As direct perceptions relations of true insight cannot be challenged by adequately intelligent criticism.

All abstract truths are truths of insight; they can be applied equally well to subjective ideas and to objectively embodied related constructive principles. Mental inferences have been wofully misleading so often in the past that they have been unjustly discredited, especially in popular comprehension. This is not the fault but the misfortune of pure insight. False premises do not lead to truthful conclusions. There must be first a knowledge of the things related, then insight undoubtedly can perceive their immaterial relationships. Relativity of mind is akin to all other actual relationships. The entire universe is bound together by its acquired relativities and its processes pure and simple, as process, as active ongoing and acquiring, are bundles of immaterial activities and thus strictly immaterial values.

The mathematical genius by insight literally sees the relativities of numbers, forms, and other relativities. Visible things and illustrative drawings may help the novice to comprehend the nature of interior correlations; natural or acquired intrinsic vision does not require that more primary type of assistance.

It is at least debatable whether too much educational simplifying may not tend to keep immature minds in an unwholesome dependence upon the senses and their objective tangible values.

The visible world and its votaries already live in that strata of being, often almost exclusively. Robberies and frauds of all kinds, and even respectable business, deal chiefly in tangible goods and their money symbols. Most temptations belong to that realm.

Church and State are becoming more and more separated (not now in governmental struggles for control), but deplorably in the individual and in the collective social consciousness. Mankind should not live by physical bread alone. Insight is higher and broader than sight; it also should be progressively cultivated. To educate the intellect too exclusively at the expense of the justice which involves the social sympathies is a growing mistake. Educated crime is the worst, hardest, greatest of crimes.

In other words my claim is that Nature's relations are efficient only through realities, and that human insight into the relations of things, in cooperation with perception through the senses, com-

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pared and verified, can obtain undoubtable truth — real and unchangeable Knowledge.

Science deals with the facts and methods of Nature. It is a cult largely of direct observation, of the direct study of the things themselves, as far as that is possible; and it traces out the methods by which each thing has been produced or changed from what it once was. Primarily it is an accumulator of objective data.

Philosophy aims to interpret Nature's facts and to trace out their inherent dependences and obligations to each other.

Science and philosophy both seek to round up the parts into a consistent whole. Of course there can be no distinct line of cleavage between them. Effective science must have its own philosophy, must ground itself upon an ample range of supplied facts and methods by which Nature has worked. The mere accumulation of material in any one field of inquiry, nor in all departments of the universe, would be next to useless if they were not coordinated and interpreted, put in their respective places in a veritable mental perspective.

Its dead facts — having no purpose, leading nowhere unless into darkness or chaos — they would be barely worth gathering. But action must act and reasoning minds must reason. Nature's highest impulse to action is towards attainment of the highest corresponding values. Serious investigation everywhere is its own reward in mental satisfaction. The pursuit of anything has a fascination of its own; the pursuit of Knowledge, the most remunerative of all vocations.

Religion has been an earnest seeker after truth of a high order and of immediate practical value. From the earliest history Religion is first and foremost in the search after Knowledge that can be of most immediate advantage for one's best and highest welfare. Religious thought accepted unquestioned the certainty that something unseen, not ourselves, and higher than ourselves, could and would influence our destinies. As men had minds and bodies, they inferred that all substances had minds. For fear, hope, and doubt, they sought to buy or bribe the favor of the superior powers, beginning to honor and worship such natural objects as most appealed to them, individuals and communities selecting their own special gods for themselves.

Gradually more intelligence and the higher sense of right and wrong developed. Some wiser than others became the teachers, the authorities; their opinions accepted in theory if not in practice. As power also assumed authority, although authority of some kind seemed the standard to follow, might and right were not, and still are not, clearly discriminated in the ever growing and differentiating religious opinions. Old beliefs — in the children's love and reverence for the fathers — clung

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to the wider outlook. The old narrowness stronger than ever unfolding other truths, authority for truth and an authorized interpretation of truth, are still held to be sacred, authorized standards of religious beliefs.

But increasing multitudes have thrown off the yoke of any authority except that of truth itself, which must be for mankind the mental, moral and social domain of living minds and their inter-relations with material things ; multitudes more have become skeptical or indifferent or absorbed by the passing interest of to-day.

Many once fully credited religious doctrines have been clearly disproved. Religion, like Science and Philosophy, is on trial and must justify its teaching or become increasingly discredited. All first-hand investigation must go to the source of all truth — existence itself, infinite and finite — God and His universe. Every intelligence must learn to recognize the alleged truths, interpret them to its own satisfaction and accept or reject on its own responsibility.

All truth is one truth, but it has many phases ; all real Knowledge is truth.

As the universe is everywhere related in structure and activities and as relation is some connection between two or more things related to each other, any theory which takes its stand with either correlate, assuming the reality of that side only — the other like the reflection or shadow of this one, by fixing attentions long and carefully upon the properties and energies of the one factor, so many real phases of diverse characters can be discovered that one may be convinced that either half can do the work and is doing the work of the joint process. Many noted thinkers, either idealists or realists, have convinced themselves and others on the one side that the illusory appearance-matter — solid and resistant as it seems, helpful and efficient it is admitted to be — is yet but a myth wrapped about with its mental cloak but in itself a veritable dummy on parade. And so internally consistent is the material theorist in his observations and conclusions that disciples are made to believe that materialists are not merely ingenious resources and expert in the use of accepted facts ; but that they are probably right in their interpretation of Nature; that matter is the one output of Being and mind the rather pleasing but fragile and fleeting phantom of substantial persistent matter. Idealists, in turn, abolish matter as a reality, making it but a shadow of existence.

The relative of universal Nature demands the duplex outlook into every relative substance and every relative process. Surely neither is this incomparable universe mere pretense and deception nor either half, destined to evaporate like the morning dew. Creation, like its Creator, could tolerate no temporary deceptions. Mistaken perceptions, concep-

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tions and conclusions arise from human ignorance and far too narrow points of view. We are all fallible.

It will yet be proved that Nature never fails anywhere, and that the universe is a faultless, perfectly balanced and coordinated, interrelated unity, composed of exclusively personal, or individualized, ever-existing, real, finite beings.