A New Era of Thought

by Charles Howard Hinton

Thus, with regard to a fellow-creature, if we knew him we should feel what his feelings are. Let us then learn his feelings, and act as if we had them. It is by the practical work of satisfying his needs that we get to know him.

Then, may-be, we love him; or perchance it is said we may find that through him we have been brought into contact with one greater than him.

This is our duty—to know—to know, not merely theoretically, but practically; and then, when we know, we have done our part; if there is nothing, we cannot supply it. All we have to do is to look for realities.

We must not take this view of education—that we are horribly pressed for time, and must learn, somehow, a knack of saying how things must be, without looking at them.

But rather, we must say that we have a long time—all our lives, in which we will press facts closer and closer to our minds; and we begin by learning the simplest. There is an idea in that home of our inspiration—the fact that there are certain mechanical processes by which men can acquire merit. This is perfectly true. It is by mechanical processes that we become different; and the science of education consists largely in systematizing these processes.

Then, just as space perceptions are necessary for the knowledge of our fellow-men, and enable us to enter into human relationships with them in all the organized variety of civilized life, so it is necessary to develop our perceptions of higher space, so that we can apprehend with our minds the relationship which we have to beings higher than ourselves, and bring our instinctive knowledge into clearer consciousness.

It appears to me self-evident, that in the particular disposition of any portion of matter, that is, in any physical action, there can be neither right nor wrong; the thing done is perfectly indifferent.

At the same time, it is only in things done that we come into relationship with the beings about us and higher than us. Consequently, in the things we do lies the whole importance of our lives.

Now, many of our impulses are directly signs of a relationship in us to a being of which we are not immediately conscious. The feeling of love, for instance, is always directed towards a particular individual; but by love man tends towards the preservation and improvement of his race; thus in the commonest and most universal impulses lie his relations to higher beings than the individuals by whom he is surrounded. Now, along with these impulses are many instincts of a modifying tendency; and, being altogether in the dark as to the nature of the higher beings to whom we are related, it is difficult to say in what the service of the higher beings consists, in what it does not. The only way is, as in every other pre-rational department of life, to take the verdict of those with the most insight and inspiration.

And any striving against such verdicts, and discontent with them, should be turned into energy towards finding out exactly what relation we have towards these higher beings by the study of Space.