The New Biology or The True Science of Life E-Book

M. J. Barnett

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of M. J. Barnett with this unforgettable book.

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

The New Biology or The True Science of Life

M. J. Barnett

CONTENTS

Preface

Whatever is new is also old. We speak of new foliage on the tree in spring-time, although we are well aware that the germ, the soul of that foliage is always alive within the tree, and that it only man­ifests itself at certain seasons. We know that dur­ing the season of rest it is just as much alive as during the season of activity, and that it is as old as the tree itself.

All truth in man is coeval with man, and only outwardly manifests itself at certain due and di­vinely appointed seasons. Were it not already within it could not become manifest without.

Although the truth is always within us as the germ of the foliage is within the tree, and will like that foliage become manifest at certain divinely ap­pointed seasons, yet, as it is for us to tend and nourish the tree that the foliage may be more flourishing and abundant, so it is for us to foster and develop the truth that is in us, that it may yield us richer results.

The season for manifesting the truth that is in us may have already arrived, but if we do not co­operate with divine intention, and work in favor of this manifestation, our foliage, though it may appear, will be sparse and sickly.

It does not matter if this foliage reappears with certain changes of form and color. Truth may be all the more acceptable for its varying manifesta­tions, and may thereby attract more attention from those who have become almost unconscious of its existence.           .

If we give an old truth a new dress, we do so, only as a courteous plucking of the robes of the passer-by. We would not mislead, but would only awaken the mind to a consciousness of ever-pres­ent truth, which from its very familiarity has ceased to make any impression.

Let us go back in imagination to the days of Saxon-English. A mother cries out to her children to come to the window and see an omnibus. “An omnibus!” they echo, trying for the first time to mouth the new Latin word, and leaving their play to see what manner of thing it is. “What big wheels it has!” they cry. “How strong it is!” “How many people it holds!” But suddenly rec­ognizing the familiar object, they say, perhaps with a shade of contempt, “Why it is only a carryall!” But then, I never noticed that it had such great springs, and such handsome red wheels, and such a nice top for trunks and boxes.” So they continue to note its peculiarities and descant upon them, and all because it has received a new name.

Such children are we. We need rousing up to a new view of old familiar truth.

CHAPTER I

THE OLD AND THE NEW

In the old biology of our day, great attention is paid to all the external manifestations of life as exhibited in motion and force. The more material of the savants will say that matter generates its own life, while those whose spiritual perceptions are more awakened will feel that all life manifested through matter, proceeds from spirit. But very few of either class seem to realize that from what­ever source this life force proceeds, they, them­selves are its masters. They fail to regard them­selves as the engineers of this great motive power.

In the new biology, or the true science of life, which is today being presented to us under so many aspects, we are given to understand that we are in charge over this motive power as manifested both in ourselves and in the world around us. We are the engineers whose duty it is to see to it that a due supply of force is obtained and rightly directed so that the working of life’s machinery may accomplish its preordained end.

What would be thought of, an engineer who apologized for the feeble and inefficient working of his machinery, by saying that his steam gave out?

Would he not be told that it was for him to see to it that he had a due supply of steam and also that it was rightly directed instead of being al­lowed to escape to no purpose?

If we lack the life force, which is ever at our command, the lack is in ourselves, and should not be attributed to anything outside of ourselves.

In the true science of life, we must look through and beyond the outward manifestation of life as visible in the material body, to the working of spirit within, to that workshop of all that is visible in us externally. We must not be startled at what appears to us a new way of regarding things. We must not feel that our old way of thinking is nec­essarily the best way, for a new way is quite likely to be an advance on an old way.

Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. Turning away from the new and looking back upon the old is a petrifying process, and its effect upon us is well symbolized by a pillar of salt.

Throwing a false glamour upon the past and un­derrating the present, is a stumbling block in the way of progress. It deters one from fully appre­ciating and utilizing the present.

That expression often uttered with a sigh, “ The good old days,” casts a reflection upon the present. It implies that yesterdays are better than todays, which is a great mistake. Today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than to­day. In ascending the spiral of inevitable progress from age to age, we gain a view of what is best by looking forward and upward, instead of backward and downward.

The world and its inhabitants are further advanced today than ever they have been before within historic ages. There are always certain individ­uals who are remarkably in advance of their race. There have also been ages in the past, in which certain races have been remarkably devel­oped in some one direction. They have perhaps been far beyond us in certain arts and sciences, but as a whole they have not been so developed, so near a perfect comprehension of the truth and intention of being as we in this later day.

Some old nations possessed an almost per­fected knowledge of material things, which has seemed to die with them, but have we reason to believe that they had passed through their mate­rial development and stepped up on to a spiritual plane above our present one?

The ancient Pompeians may have possessed the secret of exquisite and durable colors, but were they able to color their lives with that spirituality which would give the very highest prosperity?

The Grecians of old may have reached a high intellectual culture, they may have excelled us in the plastic and other arts, but did they possess that knowledge of spiritual things, which alone ensures continued prosperity? Have we any reason to suppose that they had as a whole passed our point of progress?

One, as a child of ten years may be able to spin a top or fly a kite more dexterously than as a man of forty, but would we consider that the individual had therefore retrograded instead of advanced?

We are all on our way through matter to pure spirit, and, like the earth in its diurnal journey, we are not at any one time flooded with light upon our whole being, but receive it upon one little part after another until our material day is consum­mated.

Further back than any people of which we feel that we possess accurate knowledge, we can imag­ine races much more spiritual than we; but if they had not passed through a certain material experi­ence, were they more advanced than we? An in­fant may be more innocent than an adult, but is he therefore more advanced? Is not innocence more valuable when it is coupled with knowledge? Do we consider a human being, however innocent he may be, further advanced with one year of this life than with fifty?

Why are we prone to think the past better than the present? We forget the evil and remember only the good of the past. We forget the flaws and remember only the beauties. In accordance with a beneficent law of our being, having no use for evil, it drops away from us as we pass along.

Whether we remember it or not the good of the past is all with us, and we are increasing its store by our daily addition to it.

Why should anyone imagine that in a new dis­pensation, we are deprived of some of the good of the old dispensation? In a new illumination of our minds with spiritual truth, the old good is only supplemented with a new good that is as much better and as much richer as we are able to receive.

Why should it be thought that we, in the pres­ent day, are deprived of certain spiritual advanta­ges that were enjoyed in ages gone by? We are never deprived of any spiritual good that has once been given us. What is once ours as property of the soul, is ours forever, and ours to increase and not decrease. If we let it remain latent within us, to our own undoing, instead of being bereaved we are only guilty.

It is frequently said that eighteen hundred years ago there was bestowed upon the world a knowl­edge of the power that could work miracles in the way of moral and physical reformation; but that it was a power peculiarly the property of that age and not intended for us at the present day.

We are not able to see that Jesus, either by pre­cept or example, ever intimated anything of the kind. He taught his disciples how to do mar­velous work and told them that they should do greater work than he did. We think that his promises to twelve of his disciples are intended for all of his disciples throughout all time, and are not all who follow his teachings his disciples? Our work may not be greater in kind, but it can be greater in extent. If a man gives a certain kind of knowledge to a whole country, he is said to be doing a greater work than if he gave it only to a few individuals. The truth that Jesus shed upon a few we can shed upon many. If his fol­lowers of eighteen hundred years ago could so harmonize themselves with divine law as to become a healing power to others, why should not we in this age, be able to do likewise? Are we to suffer loss from the fact of coming into the world at a more advanced period of its course? It does not seem rational to suppose so.

The distinctions made by Jesus in adopting the law were never between the new and the old, but between the true and the false. He adhered to the portions of the old law that were in accordance with truth, and rejected those that were false. He never revered the law because it was old, and he never set it aside because it was new. He sifted the old law and used the wheat and threw away the chaff.

He endeavored to replace the old Jewish con­ception of a God capable of jealousy and anger, for the higher conception of a Divine Parent all love and wisdom. He accepted the decalogue, old though it was, but endeavored to give it a richer and fuller meaning. He taught that not only he who killed, but he who was angry with his brother, should be in danger of the judgment; that instead of performing unto the Lord our oaths we are not to swear at all; that instead of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we are to resist not evil; that instead of loving our neighbor and hating our enemy, we are to love even our enemy. Wherein the old law was false, he contradicted it; wherein it was limited he extended it; wherein it was just and true he enjoined it upon his disciples, at the same time shedding upon it such light as disclosed to their vision a more interior and spirit­ual meaning within the too-revered letter of its truth.

All the teaching that Jesus, during his sojourn on earth, gave to the world, belongs to us today.

If we do not seem to have it, it is because we have mislaid it. If we do not know how to apply it to our lives and make it practical, it is because our powers in that direction have become crippled with disuse. The teaching of Jesus, being the pure essence of truth, was intended for all time. When we are capable of receiving an addition to that teaching, it will be given us.

There is no reason why the marvelous works of moral and physical reformation that have been per­formed in the past, should not with the same con­ditions, be performed by us today. There is no reason why the same conditions should not be com­manded by us as perfectly as they have been com­manded by others in the past.

We have conclusive proof of our powers today in the demonstrations that are constantly taking place all around us. Moreover we are each one of us capable of furnishing demonstrations for our­selves and in ourselves. Whatever powers for good we are in possession of, are powers intended for us to use. Whatever good we can accomplish by these powers, is a good intended to be accom­plished. God created none of our faculties in vain.

It is a law in all progress, both spiritual and ma­terial, that we lose nothing good on our way up­ward, but only add new good to the old.

In what is usually termed nature, that is God manifest in matter, we see that the vegetable king­dom possesses all that is contained in the mineral kingdom with new developments of its own; and still further that any one vegetable contains many minerals. So the animal kingdom contains all of the vegetable kingdom, with new developments of its own; and still further, any one animal contains a combination of vegetable elements. When we behold that high spiritual manifestation called the human mind, we find that it contains all there is in the material world with vastly more in addition. Every mineral, every vegetable, and every animal is in the mind of man, and not only in man as a whole, but in each individual man. In the mind of every human being is also the mind or instinct of every animal. Each animal is endowed with one characteristic mental trait; but in man, are, either latent or developed, all mental traits. He has within him the courage of the lion, the meek­ness of the lamb, the fidelity of the dog, the in­dustry of the ant, and the ingenuity of the bee.

Nothing good is ever dropped out or lost on the way, in the universal grand march of progression, and every spiritual entity as well as every material manifestation has set out upon this march, and in spite of their little temporary backslidings and their seasons of rest, they are ever going forward and upward.

The new good, that we pick up along the way, is only an addition to the old, which is always ours, with just as much more as we are able to carry.

CHAPTER II

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE

Tomorrow is higher up on the spiral of ad­vancement than today. Although tomorrow may be more full of opportunities than today, still, our tomorrow depends upon the use we make of to­day.  .

If a child educated in an institution that has risen from an a-b-c school to an incorporated and chartered college, fails to learn therein anything more than his alphabet, he reaps no benefit from the advance of the institution. It is only his indi­vidual work that can benefit him.

If we, in a more spiritual age of the world, fail to rise up out of a material condition, we receive no benefit from the world’s advance. If we would be advanced in the future, we must advance our­selves in the present.