1/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

An inborn craving for knowledge forever impels the mind to reach out in all directions for an unknown something with which to satisfy its desires. Attention is at first attracted by the outer world of objects —appearances that appeal to the senses. But after analyzing all that the senses can perceive, and even carrying the process by inductive reasoning and aid of the imagination far beyond the boundaries of actual sense perception,

it finds itself no nearer the goal of its search than at the outset. In fact, it finds itself farther than ever from the complete satisfaction of its desire for knowledge; for it begins to realize that there is no ultimate boundary line for the world of physical manifestation.

The mind goes on and on, in its efforts to conceive the magnitude and extent of something which has no limits either in space or time, until it sinks in utter amazement and bewilderment, overcome by a sense of the impossibility of ever accomplishing the task it has undertaken. But the result of this very experience has given birth to a new idea —infinity. That word, hitherto vague and meaningless, now comes to stand for a reality.

Investigation, which heretofore has been directed almost exclusively to the outside of life, now turns to the inside as well. To be sure, we continue to study phenomena, but with a new thought of their nature and significance. They seem no longer oi primary, but only of secondary importance. Mind is no longer regarded as an adjunct to matter or an emanation from it.

Its capacity is no longer that of a revealer of supposed physical reality; but, vice versa, it is seen to be not only superior to the physical which it reveals, but creator of it. In the last analysis we are driven from the phenomenal world and compelled to take refuge in mind, which is then self-revealed.

Material and spiritual, physical and metaphysical, are the opposite poles of mental energy. Intelligence requires both. Man is a microcosm of the universe. The individual is a type of the race; and we have only to study his nature deeply enough to find in him all principles and tendencies existent in larger social organisms.