2/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

Ever and anon, in the world’s history, the mind of man has been seized with an irresistible passion for investigation and exploration. The tendency to consider first the outer, and after ward the inner side of life, is characteristic of the race as well as of the individual.

When the mind of civilization awoke out of its slumber during the night of medieval darkness, a new light dawned upon it. As one rising in the morning after a sound sleep, with vigor renewed and faculties alert, it began to reach out and extend the horizon of its knowledge on all sides. A wealth of hitherto hidden treasures of intellectual and practical value opened to its view.

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Guttenberg. Watt and many other immortal names designate this period as the most notable in the world’s history in its bearings upon physical discovery and invention. But such marvelous growth in ideas relating to the outer world must needs have had its counterpart in the unfoldment of spiritual thought.

The fulfilment of this necessity was realized in the Idealism whose exponents include Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer. Thus we find a balance preserved between physical and metaphysical conceptions.

We may note a repetition, more recently, of substantially the same conditions. The nineteenth century has been characterized by a degree of scientific research unparalleled in history. Enthusiasm for material investigation, which called forth Darwin, Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz and a host of others, is even now having its natural result in an increasing interest in the spiritual aspect of life.

A predominance of the materialistic tendency in the philosophical conceptions of the former period, has led to a reaction, already manifested in the growing disposition, everywhere apparent, to consider all questions, both theoretically and practically, from a spiritual standpoint. Never before would a thoroughly systematic and intelligent study of the inner meaning and relations of life have been feasible.