The Universal Spirit

by Thomas Troward

3: Intelligent Order

Contents List:

Responsive Intelligence
Scale
Personality
Subordination to Goodness

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"Cover" of Book 16
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I have laid stress on the fact that the "innermost within" of all things is Living Spirit, and that the Science of Spirit is distinguished from the Science of Matter in that it contemplates Energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence which does not fall within the scope of physical science as such. These are the two great points to lay hold of if we would retain a clear idea of spiritual science and not be misled by arguments drawn from the physical side of Science only — the liveliness of the originating principle which is at the heart of all things, and its intelligent and responsive nature. Its liveliness is patent to our observation, at any rate from the point where we recognise it in the vegetable kingdom; but its intelligence and responsiveness are not, perhaps, at once so obvious. Nevertheless, a little thought will soon lead us to recognise this also.

No one can deny that there is an intelligent order throughout all Nature, for it requires the highest intelligence of our most highly-trained minds to follow the steps of this Universal intelligence which is always in advance of them. The more deeply we investigate the world we live in, the more clear it must become to us that all our science is the translation into words or numerical symbols of that order which already exists. If the clear statement of this existing order is the highest that the human intellect can reach, this surely argues a corresponding intelligence in the power which gives rise to this great sequence of order and interrelation, so as to constitute one harmonious whole.

Now, unless we fall back on the idea of a workman working upon material external to himself — in which case we have to explain the phenomenon of the workman — the only conception we can form of this power is that it is the Living Spirit inherent in the heart of every atom, giving it outward form and definition, and becoming in it those intrinsic polarities which constitute its characteristic nature.

There is no random work here. Every attraction and repulsion acts with its proper force, collecting the atoms into molecules, the molecules into tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into individuals. At each stage of the progress we get the sum of the intelligent forces which operate in the constituent parts, plus a higher degree of intelligence which we may regard as the collective intelligence superior to that of the mere sub-total of the parts — something which belongs to the individual as a whole, and not to the parts as such. These are facts which can be amply proved from physical science; and they also supply a great law in spiritual science, which is that in any collective body, the intelligence of the whole is superior to that of the sum of the parts.

Spirit is at the root of all things, and thoughtful observation shows that its operation is guided by unfailing intelligence which adapts means to ends, and harmonises the entire Universe of manifested being in those wonderful ways which physical science renders clearer every day. This intelligence must be in the Generating Spirit Itself, for there is no other source from which it could proceed. On these grounds, therefore, we may distinctly affirm that Spirit is intelligent, and that whatever it does is done by the intelligent adaptation of means to ends.

Scale

But Spirit is also responsive. And here we have to fall back upon the law stated above, that the mere sum of the intelligence of Spirit in lower degrees of manifestation is not equal to the intelligence of the complex whole, as a whole. This is a radical law which we cannot impress upon our minds too deeply. The degree of spiritual intelligence is marked by the wholeness of the organism through which it finds expression. Hence the more highly organised being has a degree of spirit which is superior to, and is consequently capable of exercising control over, all lower or less fully-integrated degrees of spirit. This being so, we can now begin to see why the spirit that is the "innermost within" of all things is responsive as well as intelligent.

Being intelligent, it knows; and spirit being ultimately all there is, that which it knows is itself. Hence it is that power which recognises itself; and accordingly its lower powers recognise its higher powers, and by the law of attraction they are bound to respond to the higher degrees of themselves. On this general principle, therefore, spirit, under whatever exterior revealed, is necessarily intelligent and responsive.

Personality

But intelligence and responsiveness imply personality; and we may therefore now advance a step further and argue that all spirit contains the elements of personality, even though, in any particular instance, it may not yet be expressed as that individual personality which we find in ourselves.

In short, spirit is always personal in its nature, even when it has not yet attained to that degree of synthesis which is sufficient to render it personal in manifestation. In ourselves the synthesis has proceeded far enough to reach that degree, and therefore we recognise ourselves as the manifestation of that personality which is of the essence of spiritual substance on every plane. Or, to put the whole argument in a simpler form, we may say that our own personality must necessarily have had its origin in that which is personal, on the principle that you cannot get more out of a bag than it contains.

In ourselves, therefore, we find that more perfect synthesis of the spirit into manifested personality which is lacking in the lower kingdoms of nature and, accordingly, since spirit is necessarily that which knows itself and must, therefore, recognise its own degrees in its various modes, the spirit in all degrees below that of the human personality is bound to respond to itself in that superior degree which constitutes human individuality. This is the basis of the power of human thought to externalise itself in infinite forms of its own ordering.

Subordination to Goodness

But if the subordination of the lower degrees of spirit to the higher is one of the fundamental laws which lie at the bottom of the creative power of thought, there is another equally fundamental law which places a salutary restraint upon the abuse of that power. It is the law that we can command the powers of the Universal for our own purposes only in proportion as we first realise and obey their generic character. We can employ water for any purpose which does not require it to run uphill, and we can utilise electricity for any purpose that does not require it to pass from a lower to a higher potential.

So with that Universal power which we call the Spirit. It has an inherent generic character with which we must comply if we would employ it for our specific purposes, and this character is summed up in the one word "goodness". The Spirit is Life; hence its generic tendency must always be lifeward or to the increase of the liveliness of every individual. Since it is Universal, it can have no particular interests to serve; and therefore its action must always be equally for the benefit of all. This is the generic character of Spirit: just as water, or electricity, or any other of the physical forces of the Universe, will not work contrary to their generic character, so Spirit will not work contrary to its generic character.

The inference is obvious. If we would use Spirit we must follow the law of the Spirit, which is "Goodness". This is the only limitation. If our originating intention is good, we may employ the spiritual power for what purpose we will. And how is "goodness" to be defined? Simply by the child's definition that what is bad is not good, and that what is good is not bad; we all instinctively know the difference between bad and good. If we will conform to this principle of obedience to the generic law of the Spirit, all that remains is for us to study the law of the proportion which exists between the more and less fully integrated modes of Spirit, and then bring our knowledge to bear with determination.