There was no reply to the question.
“Very well,” continued Hitt. “Evil can not be really known. And that is why God––infinite Mind––can not behold evil. And now, friends, I have come to the conclusion of a long series of deductions. If infinite mind is the cause and creator, that is, the revealer, of all that really exists, its suppositional opposite, its negative, must likewise simulate a creation, or revelation, or unfolding, for this opposite must of very necessity pose as a creative principle. It must simulate all the powers and attributes of the infinite creative mind. If the creative mind gave rise to a spiritual universe and spiritual man, by which it expresses itself, then this suppositional opposite must present its universe and its man, opposite in every particular to the reality. It is this sort of man and this sort of universe that we, as mortals, seem to see all about us, and that we refer to as human beings and the physical universe. And yet, all that we see, feel, hear, smell, or taste is the false, suppositional thought that comes into our so-called mentalities, and by its suppositional 82 activity there causes what we call consciousness or awareness of things.”
“Then,” said Father Waite, more to enunciate his own thought than to question the deduction, “what the human consciousness holds as knowledge is little more than belief and speculation, with no basis of truth, no underlying principle.”
“Just so. And it brings out the fruits of such beliefs in discord, decay, and final dissolution, called death. For this human consciousness forms its own concept of a fleshly body, and a mind-and-matter man. It makes the laws which govern its body, and it causes its body to obey these false laws. Upon the quality of thought entering this human consciousness depend all the phenomena of earthly life and environment which the mortal experiences. The human consciousness, in other words, is a self-centered mass of erroneous thought, utterly without any basis of real principle, but actively engaged in building up mental images, and forming and maintaining an environment in which it supposes itself to live. This false thought in the human consciousness forms into a false concept of man, and this is the soul-and-body man, the mind-and-matter man, which is called a human being, or a mortal.”
“And there,” commented Carmen, with a dreamy, far-away look, “we have what Padre Josè so long ago spoke of as the ‘externalization of thought.’ It is the same law which Jesus had in mind when he said, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’”
“Yes,” said Hitt. “For we know only what enters our mentalities and becomes active there. And every thought that does so enter, tends at once to become externalized. That is, there is at once the tendency for us to see it visualized in some way, either as material object, or environment, or on our bodies. And it is the very activity of such thought that constitutes the human mentality, as I have already said.”
“And that thought is continually changing,” suggested Father Waite.
“Just so. Its very lack of true principle requires that it should change constantly, in order to simulate as closely as possible the real. That accounts for the fleeting character of the whole human concept of man and the physical universe. The human personality is never fixed, although the elements of human character remain; that is, those elements which are essentially unreal and mortal, such as lust, greed, hatred, and materiality, seem to remain throughout the ages. They will give way only before truth, even as Paul said. But not until truth has been admitted to the human mentality and begins its solvent work there, the work of denying and tearing down 83 the false thought-concepts and replacing them with true ones.”
“And will truth come through the physical senses?” asked Miss Wall.
“No, decidedly no!” said Hitt. “The physical senses testify of nothing. Their supposed testimony is the material thought which enters the human mentality and becomes active there, resulting in human consciousness of both good and evil. And that thought will have to give way to true thought, before we can begin to put off the ‘old man’ and put on the ‘new.’ Human thoughts, or, as we say, the physical senses, do not and can not testify of absolute truth. They do not know God.”