| The book contains 8 chapters , Total length 4hrs 38min
THE LAW AND THE WORD
BY T. TROWARD
Late Divisional Judge, Punjab. Honorary member of
the Medico-Legal Society of New York.
First Vice-President International
New Thought Alliance
Author of the “Edinburgh Lectures on Mental
Science,” etc.
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1937
COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY S.A. TROWARD
Published, May, 1917
Eighth Printing, June, 1937
THE LAW AND THE WORD
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD iii
I SOME FACTS IN NATURE 1
II SOME PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES 18
III MAN’S PLACE IN THE CREATIVE ORDER 44
IV THE LAW OF WHOLENESS 75
V THE SOUL OF THE SUBJECT 85
VI THE PROMISES 103
VII DEATH AND IMMORTALITY 132
VIII TRANSFERRING THE BURDEN 168
FOREWORD
THOMAS TROWARD
AN APPRECIATION
How is one to know a friend? Certainly not by the duration of
acquaintance. Neither can friendship be bought or sold by service
rendered. Nor can it be coined into acts of gallantry or phrases of
flattery. It has no part in the small change of courtesy. It is outside
all these, containing them all and superior to them all.
To some is given the great privilege of a day set apart to mark the
arrival of a total stranger panoplied with all the insignia of
friendship. He comes unannounced. He bears no letter of introduction. No
mutual friend can vouch for him. Suddenly and silently he steps
unexpectedly out of the shadow of material concern and spiritual
obscurity, into the radiance of intimate friendship, as a picture is
projected upon a lighted screen. But unlike the phantom picture he is an
instant reality that one’s whole being immediately recognizes, and the
radiance of fellowship that pervades his word, thought and action holds
all the essence of long companionship.
Unfortunately there are too few of these bright messengers of God to be
met with in life’s pilgrimage, but that Judge Troward was one of them
will never be doubted by the thousands who are now mourning his
departure from among us. Those whose closest touch with him has been the
reading of his books will mourn him as a friend only less than those who
listened to him on the platform. For no books ever written more clearly
expressed the author. The same simple lucidity and gentle humanity, the
same effort to discard complicated non-essentials, mark both the man and
his books.
Although the spirit of benign friendliness pervades his writings and
illuminated his public life, yet much of his capacity for friendship was
denied those who were not privileged to clasp hands with him and to sit
beside him in familiar confidence. Only in the intimacy of the fireside
did he wholly reveal his innate modesty and simplicity of character.
Here alone, glamoured with his radiating friendship, was shown the
wealth of his richly-stored mind equipped by nature and long training to
deal logically with the most profound and abstruse questions of life.
Here indeed was proof of his greatness, his unassuming superiority, his
humanity, his keen sense of honour, his wit and humour, his generosity
and all the characteristics of a rare gentleman, a kindly philosopher
and a true friend.
To Judge Troward was given the logician’s power to strip a subject bare
of all superfluous and concealing verbiage, and to exhibit the gleaming
jewels of truth and reality in splendid simplicity. This supreme
quality, this ability to make the complex simple, the power to
subordinate the non-essential, gave to his conversation, to his
lectures, to his writings, and in no less degree to his personality, a
direct and charming naïveté that at once challenged attention and
compelled confidence and affection.
His sincerity was beyond question. However much one might differ from
him in opinion, at least one never doubted his profound faith and
complete devotion to truth. His guileless nature was beyond ungenerous
suspicions and selfish ambitions. He walked calmly upon his way wrapped
in the majesty of his great thoughts, oblivious to the vexations of the
world’s cynicism. Charity and reverence for the indwelling spirit marked
all his human relations. Tolerance of the opinions of others,
benevolence and tenderness dwelt in his every word and act. Yet his
careful consideration of others did not paralyze the strength of his
firm will or his power to strike hard blows at wrong and error. The
search for truth, to which his life was devoted, was to him a holy
quest. That he could and would lay a lance in defence of his opinions is
evidenced in his writings, and has many times been demonstrated to the
discomfiture of assailing critics. But his urbanity was a part of
himself and never departed from him.
Not to destroy but to create was his part in the world. In developing
his philosophy he built upon the foundation of his predecessors. No good
and true stone to be found among the ruins of the past, but was
carefully worked into his superstructure of modern thought, radiant with
spirituality, to the building of which the enthusiasm of his life was
devoted.
To one who has studied Judge Troward, and grasped the significance of
his theory of the “Universal Sub-conscious Mind,” and who also has
attained to an appreciation of Henri Bergson’s theory of a “Universal
Livingness,” superior to and outside the material Universe, there must
appear a distinct correlation of ideas. That intricate and ponderously
irrefutable argument that Bergson has so patiently built up by deep
scientific research and unsurpassed profundity of thought and
crystal-clear reason, that leads to the substantial conclusion that man
has leapt the barrier of materiality only by the urge of some external
pressure superior to himself, but which, by reason of infinite effort,
he alone of all terrestrial beings has succeeded in utilizing in a
superior manner and to his advantage: this well-rounded and exhaustively
demonstrated argument in favour of a super-livingness in the universe,
which finds its highest terrestrial expression in man, appears to be the
scientific demonstration of Judge Troward’s basic principle of the
“Universal Sub-conscious Mind.” This universal and infinite
God-consciousness which Judge Troward postulates as man’s
sub-consciousness, and from which man was created and is maintained,
and of which all physical, mental and spiritual manifestation is a form
of expression, appears to be a corollary of Bergson’s demonstrated
“Universal Livingness.” What Bergson has so brilliantly proven by
patient and exhaustive processes of science, Judge Troward arrived at by
intuition, and postulated as the basis of his argument, which he
proceeded to develop by deductive reasoning.
The writer was struck by the apparent parallelism of these two
distinctly dissimilar philosophies, and mentioned the discovery to Judge
Troward who naturally expressed a wish to read Bergson, with whose
writings he was wholly unacquainted. A loan of Bergson’s “Creative
Evolution” produced no comment for several weeks, when it was returned
with the characteristic remark, “I’ve tried my best to get hold of him,
but I don’t know what he is talking about.” I mention the remark as
being characteristic only because it indicates his extreme modesty and
disregard of exhaustive scientific research.
The Bergson method of scientific expression was unintelligible to his
mind, trained to intuitive reasoning. The very elaborateness and
microscopic detail that makes Bergson great is opposed to Judge
Troward’s method of simplicity. He cared not for complexities, and the
intricate minutiæ of the process of creation, but was only concerned
with its motive power–the spiritual principles upon which it was
organized and upon which it proceeds.
Although the conservator of truth of every form and degree wherever
found, Judge Troward was a ruthless destroyer of sham and pretence. To
those submissive minds that placidly accept everything indiscriminately,
and also those who prefer to follow along paths of well-beaten opinion,
because the beaten path is popular, to all such he would perhaps appear
to be an irreverent iconoclast seeking to uproot long accepted dogma and
to overturn existing faiths. Such an opinion of Judge Troward’s work
could not prevail with any one who has studied his teachings.
His reverence for the fundamental truths of religious faith was
profound, and every student of his writings will testify to the great
constructive value of his work. He builded upon an ancient foundation a
new and nobler structure of human destiny, solid in its simplicity and
beautiful in its innate grandeur.
But to the wide circle of Judge Troward’s friends he will best and most
gloriously be remembered as a teacher. In his magic mind the
unfathomable revealed its depths and the illimitable its boundaries;
metaphysics took on the simplicity of the ponderable, and man himself
occupied a new and more dignified place in the Cosmos. Not only did he
perceive clearly, but he also possessed that quality of mind even more
rare than deep and clear perception, that clarity of expression and
exposition that can carry another and less-informed mind along with it,
on the current of its understanding, to a logical and comprehended
conclusion.
In his books, his lectures and his personality he was always ready to
take the student by the hand, and in perfect simplicity and friendliness
to walk and talk with him about the deeper mysteries of life–the life
that includes death–and to shed the brilliant light of his wisdom upon
the obscure and difficult problems that torment sincere but rebellious
minds.
His artistic nature found expression in brush and canvas and his great
love for the sea is reflected in many beautiful marine sketches. But if
painting was his recreation, his work was the pursuit of Truth wherever
to be found, and in whatever disguise.
His life has enriched and enlarged the lives of many, and all those who
knew him will understand that in helping others he was accomplishing
exactly what he most desired. Knowledge, to him, was worth only what it
yielded in uplifting humanity to a higher spiritual appreciation, and to
a deeper understanding of God’s purpose and man’s destiny.
A man, indeed! He strove not for a place,
Nor rest, nor rule. He daily walked with God.
His willing feet with service swift were shod–
An eager soul to serve the human race,
Illume the mind, and fill the heart with grace–
Hope blooms afresh where’er those feet have trod.
PAUL DERRICK.
THE LAW AND THE WORD
CHAPTER I
SOME FACTS IN NATURE
If I were asked what, in my opinion, distinguishes the thought of the
present day from that of a previous generation, I should feel inclined
to say, it is the fact that people are beginning to realize that Thought
is a power in itself, one of the great forces of the Universe, and
ultimately the greatest of forces, directing all the others. This idea
seems to be, as the French say, “in the air,” and this very well
expresses the state of the case–the idea is rapidly spreading through
many countries and through all classes, but it is still very much “in
the air.” It is to a great extent as yet only in a gaseous condition,
vague and nebulous, and so not leading to the practical results, both
individual and collective, which might be expected of it, if it were
consolidated into a more workable form. We are like some amateurs who
want to paint finished pictures before they have studied the elements of
Art, and when they see an artist do without difficulty what they vainly
attempt, they look upon him as a being specially favoured by Providence,
instead of putting it down to their own want of knowledge. The idea is
true. Thought _is_ the great power of the Universe. But to make it
practically available we must know something of the principles by which
it works–that it is not a mere vaporous indefinable influence floating
around and subject to no known laws, but that on the contrary, it
follows laws as uncompromising as those of mathematics, while at the
same time allowing unlimited freedom to the individual.
Now the purpose of the following pages, is to suggest to the reader the
lines on which to find his way out of this nebulous sort of thought into
something more solid and reliable. I do not profess, like a certain
Negro preacher, to “unscrew the inscrutable,” for we can never reach a
point where we shall not find the inscrutable still ahead of us; but if
I can indicate the use of a screw-driver instead of a hatchet, and that
the screws should be turned from left to right, instead of from right to
left, it may enable us to unscrew some things which would otherwise
remain screwed down tight. We are all beginners, and indeed the
hopefulness of life is in realizing that there are such vistas of
unending possibilities before us, that however far we may advance, we
shall always be on the threshold of something greater. We must be like
Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up–heaven defend me from ever feeling
quite grown up, for then I should come to a standstill; so the reader
must take what I have to say simply as the talk of one boy to another in
the Great School, and not expect too much.
The first question then is, where to begin. Descartes commenced his book
with the words “Cogito, ergo sum.” “I think, therefore I am,” and we
cannot do better than follow his example. There are two things about
which we cannot have any doubt–our own existence, and that of the world
around us. But what is it in us that is aware of these two things, that
hopes and fears and plans regarding them? Certainly not our flesh and
bones. A man whose leg has been amputated is able to think just the
same. Therefore it is obvious that there is something in us which
receives impressions and forms ideas, that reasons upon facts and
determines upon courses of action and carries them out, which is not the
physical body. This is the real “I Myself.” This is the Person we are
really concerned with; and it is the betterment of this “I Myself” that
makes it worth while to enquire what our Thought has to do in the
matter.
Equally true it is on the other hand that the forces of Nature around us
do not think. Steam, electricity, gravitation, and chemical affinity do
not think. They follow certain fixed laws which we have no power to
alter. Therefore we are confronted at the outset by a broad distinction
between two modes of Motion–the Movement of Thought and the Movement of
Cosmic Energy–the one based upon the exercise of Consciousness and
Will, and the other based upon Mathematical Sequence. This is why that
system of instruction known as Free Masonry starts by erecting the two
symbolic pillars Jachin and Boaz–Jachin so called from the root “Yak”
meaning “One,” indicating the Mathematical element of Law; and Boaz,
from the root “Awáz” meaning “Voice” indicating Personal element of Free
Will. These names are taken from the description in I Kings vii, 21 and
II Chron. iii, 17 of the building of Solomon’s Temple, where these two
pillars stood before the entrance, the meaning being that the Temple of
Truth can only be entered by passing between them, that is, by giving
each of these factors their due relation to the other, and by realizing
that they are the two Pillars of the Universe, and that no real progress
can be made except by finding the true balance between them. Law and
Personality–these are the two great principles with which we have to
deal, and the problem is to square the one with the other.
Let me start, then, by considering some well established facts in the
physical world which show how the known Law acts under certain known
conditions, and this will lead us on in an intelligible manner to see
how the same Law is likely to work under as yet unknown conditions. If
we had to deal with unknown laws as well as unknown conditions we
should, indeed, be up a gum tree. Fancy a mathematician having to solve
an equation, both sides of which were entirely made up of unknown
quantities–where would he be? Happily this is not the case. The Law is
ONE throughout, and the apparent variety of its working results from the
infinite variety of the conditions under which it may work. Let us lay a
foundation, then, by seeing how it works in what we call the common
course of Nature. A few examples will suffice.
Hardly more than a generation ago it was supposed that the analysis of
matter could not be carried further than its reduction to some seventy
primary chemical elements, which in various combinations produced all
material substances; but there was no explanation how all these
different elements came into existence. Each appeared to be an original
creation, and there was no accounting for them. But now-a-days, as the
rustic physician says in Molière’s play of the “Médecin Malgré Lui,”
“nous avons changé tout cela.” Modern science has shown conclusively
that every kind of chemical atom is composed of particles of one
original substance which appears to pervade all space, and to which the
name of Ether has been given. Some of these particles carry a positive
charge of electricity and some a negative, and the chemical atom is
formed by the grouping of a certain number of negatively charged
particles round a centre composed of positive electricity around which
they revolve; and it is the number of these particles and the rate of
their motion that determines the nature of the atom, whether, for
instance, it will be an atom of iron or an atom of hydrogen, and thus we
are brought back to Plato’s old aphorism that the Universe consists of
Number and Motion.
The size of these etheric particles is small beyond anything but
abstract mathematical conception. Sir Oliver Lodge is reported to have
made the following comparison in a lecture delivered at Birmingham. “The
chemical atom,” he said, “is as small in comparison to a drop of water
as a cricket-ball is compared to the globe of the earth; and yet this
atom is as large in comparison to one of its constituent particles as
Birmingham town-hall is to a pin’s head.” Again, it has been said that
in proportion to the size of the particles the distance at which they
revolve round the centre of the atom is as great as the distance from
the earth to the sun. I must leave the realization of such infinite
minuteness to the reader’s imagination–it is beyond mine.
Modern science thus shows us all material substance, whether that of
inanimate matter or that of our own bodies, as proceeding out of one
primary etheric substance occupying all space and homogeneous, that is
being of a uniform substance–and having no qualities to distinguish one
part from another. Now this conclusion of science is important because
it is precisely the fact that out of this homogeneous substance
particles are produced which differ from the original substance in that
they possess positive and negative energy and of these particles the
atom is built up. So then comes the question: What started this
differentiation?
The electronic theory which I have just mentioned takes us as far as a
universal homogeneous ether as the source from which all matter is
evolved, but it does not account for how motion originated in it; but
perhaps another closely allied scientific theory will help us. Let us,
then, turn to the question of Vibrations or Waves in Ether. In
scientific language the length of a wave is the distance from the crest
of one wave to that of the wave immediately following it. Now modern
science recognizes a long series of waves in ether, commencing with the
smallest yet known measuring 0.1 micron, or about 1/254,000 of an inch,
in length, measured by Professor Schumann in 1893, and extending to
waves of many miles in length used in wireless telegraphy–for instance
those employed between Clifden in Galway and Glace Bay in Nova Scotia
are estimated to have a length of nearly four miles. These
infinitesimally small ultra-violet or actinic waves, as they are called,
are the principal agents in photography, and the great waves of wireless
telegraphy are able to carry a force across the Atlantic which can
sensibly affect the apparatus on the other side; therefore we see that
the ether of space affords a medium through which energy can be
transmitted by means of vibrations.
But what starts the vibrations? Hertz announced his discovery of the
electro-magnetic waves, now known by his name, in 1888; but, following
up the labours of various other investigators, Lodge, Marconi and others
finally developed their practical application after Hertz’s death which
occurred in 1894. To Hertz, however, belongs the honour of discovering
how to generate these waves by means of sudden, sharply defined,
electrical discharges. The principle may be illustrated by dropping a
stone in smooth water. The sudden impact sets up a series of ripples all
round the centre of disturbance, and the electrical impulse acts
similarly in the ether. Indeed the fact that the waves flow in all
directions from the central impulse is one of the difficulties of
wireless telegraphy, because the message may be picked up in any
direction by a receiver tuned to the same rate of vibration, and the
interest for us consists in the hypothesis that thought-waves act in an
analogous manner.
That vibrations are excited by sound is beautifully exemplified by the
eidophone, an instrument invented, I believe, by Mrs. Watts-Hughes, and
with which I have seen that lady experiment. Dry sand is scattered on a
diaphragm on which the eidophone concentrates the vibrations from music
played near it. The sand, as it were, dances in time to the music, and
when the music stops is found to settle into definite forms, sometimes
like a tree or a flower, or else some geometrical figure, but never a
confused jumble. Perhaps in this we may find the origin of the legends
regarding the creative power of Orpheus’ lyre, and also the sacred
dances of the ancients–who knows!
Perhaps some critical reader may object that sound travels by means of
atmospheric and not etheric waves; but is he prepared to say that it
cannot produce etheric waves also. The very recent discovery of
transatlantic telephoning tends to show that etheric waves can be
generated by sound, for on the 20th of October, 1915, words spoken in
New York were immediately heard in Paris, and could therefore only have
been transmitted through the ether, for sound travels through the
atmosphere only at the rate of about 750 miles an hour, while the speed
of impulses through ether can only be compared to that of light or
186,000 miles in a second. It is therefore a fair inference that etheric
vibrations can be inaugurated by sound.
Perhaps the reader may feel inclined to say with the Irishman that all
this is “as dry as ditch-water,” but he will see before long that it has
a good deal to do with ourselves. For the present what I want him to
realize by a few examples is the mathematical accuracy of Law. The value
of these examples lies in their illustration of the fact that the Law
can always be trusted to lead us on to further knowledge. We see it
working under known conditions, and relying on its unchangeableness, we
can then logically infer what it will do under other hypothetical
conditions, and in this way many important discoveries have been made.
For instance it was in this way that Mendeléef, the Russian chemist,
assumed the existence of three then unknown chemical elements, now
called Scandium, Gallium and Germanium. There was a gap in the orderly
sequence of the chemical elements, and relying on the old maxim–”Natura
nihil facit per saltum”–Nature nowhere leaves a gap to jump over–he
argued that if such elements did not exist they ought to, and so he
calculated what these elements ought to be like, giving their atomic
weight, chemical affinities, and the like; and when they were discovered
many years later they were found to answer exactly to his description.
He prophesied, not by guesswork, but by knowledge of the Law; and in
much the same way radium was discovered by Professor and Madame Curie.
In like manner Hertz was led to the discovery of the electro-magnetic
waves. The celebrated mathematician Clerk-Maxwell had calculated all
particulars of these waves twenty-five years before Hertz, on the basis
of these calculations, worked out his discovery. Again, Neptune, the
outermost known planet of our system was discovered by the astronomer
Galle in consequence of calculations made by Leverrier. Certain
variations in the movements of the planets were mathematically
unaccountable except on the hypothesis that some more remote planet
existed. Astronomers had faith in mathematics and the hypothetical
planet was found to be a reality. Instances of this kind might be
multiplied, but as the French say “à quoi bon?” I think these will be
sufficient to convince the reader that the invariable sequence of Law is
a factor to be relied upon, and that by studying its working under known
conditions we may get at least some measure of light on conditions which
are as yet unknown to us.
Let us now pass on to the human subject and consider a few examples of
what is usually called the psychic side of our nature. Walt Whitman was
quite right when he said that we are not all included between our hat
and our boots; we shall find that our modes of consciousness and powers
of action are not entirely restricted to our physical body. The
importance of this line of enquiry lies in the fact that if we do
possess extra-physical powers, these also form part of our personality
and must be included in our estimate of our relation to our environment,
and it is therefore worth our while to consider them.
Some very interesting experiments have been made by De Rochas, an
eminent French scientist, which go to show that under certain magnetic
conditions the sensation of physical touch can be experienced at some
distance from the body. He found that under these conditions the person
experimented on is insensible to the prick of a needle run into his
skin, but if the prick is made about an inch-and-a-half away from the
surface of the skin he feels it. Again at about three inches from this
point he feels the prick of the needle, but is insensible to it in the
space between these two points. Then there comes another interval in
which no sensation is conveyed, but at about three inches still further
away he again feels the sensation, and so on; so that he appears to be
surrounded by successive zones of sensation, the first about an
inch-and-a-half from the body, and the others at intervals of about
three inches each. The number of these zones seems to vary in different
cases, but in some there are as many as six or seven, thus giving a
radius of sensation, extending to more than twenty inches beyond the
body.
Now to explain this we must have recourse to what I have already said
about waves. The heart and the lungs are the two centres of automatic
rhythmic movement in the body, and each projects its own series of
vibrations into the etheric envelope. Those projected by the lungs are
estimated to be three times the length of those projected by the heart,
while those projected by the heart are three times as rapid as those
projected by the lungs. Consequently if the two sets of waves start
together the crest of every third wave of the rapid series of short
waves will coincide with the crest of one of the long waves of the
slower series, while the intermediate short waves will coincide with the
depression of one of the long waves. Now the effect of the crest of one
wave overtaking that of another going in the same direction, is to raise
the two together at that point into a single wave of greater amplitude
or height than the original waves had by themselves; if the reader has
the opportunity of studying the inflowing of waves on the seabeach he
can verify this for himself. Consequently when the more rapid etheric
waves overtake the slower ones they combine to form a larger wave, and
it is at these points that the zones of sensation occur. If the reader
will draw a diagram of two waved lines travelling along the same
horizontal line and so proportioned that the crest of each of the large
waves coincides with the crest of every third wave of the small ones, he
will see what I mean: and if he then recollects that the fall in the
larger waves neutralizes the rise in the smaller ones, and that because
this double series starts from the interior of the body the surface of
the body comes just at one of these neutralized points, he will see why
sensation is neutralized there; and he will also see why the succeeding
zones of sensation are double the distance from each other that the
first one is from the surface of the body; it is simply because the
surface of the body cuts the first long wave exactly in the middle, and
therefore only half that wave occurs outside the body. This is the
explanation given by De Rochas, and it affords another example of that
principle of mathematical sequence of which I have spoken. It would
appear that under normal conditions the double series of vibrations is
spread all over the body, and so all parts are alike sensitive to touch.
I think, then, we may assume on the basis of De Rochas’ experiments and
others that there are such things as etheric vibrations proceeding from
human personality, and in the next chapter I will give some examples
showing that the psychic personality extends still further than these
experiments, taken by themselves, would indicate–in fact that we
possess an additional range of faculties far exceeding those which we
ordinarily exercise through the physical body, and which must therefore
be included in our conception of ourselves if we are to have an adequate
idea of what we really are.
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