“We must remember,” he said, “in conjunction with what we have deduced regarding the infinite creative mind and its manifestations, that we mortals in our daily mundane existence deal only and always with phenomena, with appearances, with effects, and never with ultimate causes. And so all our material knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only. Of the ultimate essence of things, the human mind knows nothing. All of its knowledge is relative. A phenomenon may be so-and-so with regard to another; but that either is absolute truth we can not affirm. And yet––mark this well––as Spencer says, ‘Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative.’”
“And just what does that mean?” asked Miss Wall.
“It is a primitive statement of what is sometimes called the ‘Theory of suppositional opposites’”, replied Hitt. “It means that to every reality there is the corresponding unreality. For every truth there may be postulated the supposition. We can not, as the great philosopher says, conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a reality of which they are appearances. He further amplifies this by saying that ‘every positive notion––the concept of a thing by what it is––suggests a negative notion––the concept of a thing by what it is not. But, though these mutually suggest each other, the positive alone is real.’ Most momentous language, that! For, interpreted, it means: we must deny the seeming, or that which appears to human sense, in order to see that which is real.”
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Miss Wall, glancing about to note the effect of the speaker’s words on the others.
But Carmen nodded her thorough agreement, and added: “Did not Jesus say that we must deny ourselves? Deny which self? Why, the self that appears to us, the matter-man, the dust-man, the man of the second chapter of Genesis. We must deny his reality, and know that he is nothing but a mental concept, formed out of suppositional thought, out of dust-thought. And that is material thought.”
“Undoubtedly correct,” said Hitt, turning to Carmen. “But, before we consider the astonishing teachings of Jesus, let us sum up the conclusions of philosophy. To begin with, then, there is a First Cause, omnipotent and omnipresent, and of very necessity perfect. That Cause lies back of all the phenomena of life; and, because of its real existence, there arises the suppositional existence of its opposite, its negative, so to 78 speak, which is unreal. The phenomena of human existence have to do only with the suppositional existence of the great First Cause’s opposite. They are a reflection of that supposition. Hence all human knowledge of an external world is but phenomenal, and consists of appearances which have no more real substance than have shadows. We, as mortals, know but the shadowy, phenomenal existence. We do not know reality. Therefore, our knowledge is not real knowledge, but supposition.
“Now,” he went on hastily, for he saw an expression of protest on Reverend Moore’s face, “we are more or less familiar with a phenomenal existence, with appearances, with effects; and our knowledge of these is entirely mental. We see all things as thought. These thoughts, such as feeling, seeing, hearing, and so on, we ignorantly attribute to the five physical senses. This is what Ruskin calls the ‘pathetic fallacy.’ And because we do so, we find ourselves absolutely dependent upon these senses––in belief. Moreover, quoting Spencer again, only the absolutely real is the absolutely persistent, or enduring. Truth, for example. The truth of the multiplication table will endure eternally. It is real. But is it any whit material?”
“No,” admitted Miss Wall, speaking for the others.
“And, as regards material objects which we seem to see and touch,” went on Hitt, “we appear to see solidity and hardness, and we conceive as real objects what are only the mental signs or indications of objects. Remember, matter does not and can not get into the mind. Only thoughts and ideas enter our mentalities. We see our thoughts of hardness, solidity, and so on; and these thoughts point to something that is real. That something is––what? I repeat: the ideas of the infinite creative Mind. The thoughts of size, shape, hardness, and so on, which we group together and call material chairs, trees, mountains, and other objects, are but ‘relative realities,’ pointing to the absolute reality, infinite mind and its eternal ideas and thoughts.”
He paused again for comments. But all seemed absorbed in his statements. Then he resumed: