3/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

The inductive method has been applied to every department of knowledge relating to the outer world, until sciences have been established, one after another, upon a basis of fact. They are now studied not only individually, but relatively, as interdependent branches —as integrant parts of one complex system, each of which throws some light upon others and gives a larger significance to all.

But physical sciences take account of only one side of life —the outer. When they have been pursued to their utmost capacity, elements of experience still remain unaccounted for, which cannot be brought within their scope. We are then obliged to ascend to other planes, and view the world from the standpoint of its psychical and spiritual sides.

While man regarded himself as only a material being — the highest species of the animal kingdom —it is not surprising that this thought should have been projected in the form of an anthropomorphic God. While he considered the world a collection of separately created objects, it was inevitable that he should have conceived of a God external to the human soul. But with the growth of spiritual consciousness, he began to look within as well as without.

“I searched for God with heart-throbs of despair, ‘Neath ocean’s bed, above the vaulted sky; At last I searched myself, my inmost I, And found him there.”

The negative materialism, skepticism and pessimism of the recent past are already giving place for spiritual activity born of faith and positive assurance. Evidences of a regenerating force are everywhere present in the social organism. The spirit of freedom, which at present characterizes intellectual and moral conceptions, is apparent also in the industrial and economic world. There, too, events are steadily tending toward a climax.

The purified intellectual atmosphere, which enables us to attain to a more spiritual consciousness, also affords glimpses of a new social order dominated by love instead of selfishness, which will yet emerge from the current strifes and controversies of the material plane. All indications point toward an approaching adjustment of life on a spiritual basis. Earnest efforts along every line are simultaneously converging to this end.

The close of the nineteenth century marks a decided epoch in human progress. All indications point to the speedy advent of an era in which a new, spiritual type of man, and consequently a new society will prevail. Manifold theories and aims, exercised along independent lines, need the unifying power of some great life which shall embody them in practical shape. Such an incarnation alone can bring them into vital relation to the lives of people of all classes.