This conception, enormous advance as it is on the previous materialism of Huxley’s protoplasm, is yet so pregnant with the taint of the materialistic age, that it requires modifying before it can even be admitted as a logical hypothesis. For one must ask; if the cell gets its impulse from the nucleus, the nucleus from the rods that inhabit it, these rods from the little biophors of which they are composed, and these from the determinants, where on earth do the determinants get it from? We are reminded, moreover, that there was a time, not far away, when this particular cell had no separate existence of its own. And if we are directed back to the ovaries, and from them to the germinal layer, and this from the cell again, still there is no escape, for we may well ask with the Duke of Argyle: “What then! Whence the first?”
But the thing has a more definite and easy solution, for if these material units are the Creators, and if as it is stated, the ingredients of matter, especially sentient matter (so-called) are constantly undergoing motion and change, by displacement; what about these units when the time comes for them to play their part, has not their substance been lost and replaced over and over again.
So we come back to our philosophy and we realize what our Chief, W. Q. Judge, taught us, that the cell only has an existence as an idea. Thinking of this word for a moment, looking it up in the dictionary we find the following verbatim (Gr. idea, from idein, to see) “one of the archetypes or patterns of Created things, conceived by the Platonists to have existed from eternity in the mind of the Deity.”[[7]] Now look at the words used by Dr. Weissmann, idants and ids. Is there not something very suggestive here. We are then dealing not with matter alone, but with ideas; nay, more, what is matter but an idea or congeries of ideas? For as has been well said we know nothing of matter per se but only the manifestation of matter. It is the idea not the matter that takes form. Now we must surely recognize that ideas as things are not causes but effects. So our professor all this time has been dealing with effects and gets these mixed up with the causes. If cells and the contents are ideas containing ideas, and if idea means that which is seen, then there must somewhere be a Seer, and such a seer without any sophistry must be a magician—not because we associate the word Seer with magician, but quite independently.
Now we have realized that the body of man is composed of many minuter entities, over which stands the supreme ruler. Each organ is composed of many entities, over which rules the conscious governor of that organ, and so on to the little cells which in their turn are composed of minuter creatures each having a conscious existence of its own, whilst that Consciousness is composed of the consciousness of all its component lives. That consciousness is in each case part of the Divine consciousness that pervades all things and acts in direct proportion to its plane of activity.
This Divine Consciousness in man which is the real man—real in the sense of permanency—is quite on a par with the Creators, though that real self is perhaps not known to any of our personal selves. But then stands that real Self at the commencement of each New Birth. As the process of evolution goes on each step in the meditation of this mighty Self as he contemplates existence, finds a responsive thrill in the tiny ovum, bound to himself by the strong bonds of Karma. As he emerges in contemplation from the mineral to the vegetable and on to the animal, so the sensitive plasm of the germ responds. Page after page of the history of man is retold till once more the story is complete to the point where the previous incarnation ended; then the child is born to carry on the history as best he may.
So in the cell the determinants are the little bundles of ideas coming from the Magician (ourselves) and being instilled bit by bit into the heart of each of those groups of molecules and ensouling it, so the tale is told and this side of manifestation opens out into the beautiful blossom of Humanity, moulded also in part by the parental influences which can make or mar the impulse as it comes straight from the Creator’s mind. Make or mar, and yet how few women think of the real, sacred and holy duty of parentage. How hellish the times in which any dares to point the finger of scorn and shame at a blessed pregnant woman. But as we are beginning to understand, soon shall we be able to reverence them all as the sacredness of motherhood is understood.
This little picture contains the whole of our philosophy, and it must be left more or less to the intuitions of each. But in closing we can say this much. The study of the cell teaches that Brotherhood is a fact in nature. It teaches that that brotherhood depends on the harmonious coördinate activity of many entities, working together united by the recognition of the one source of life and inspiration. It also teaches the great Divine mystery that hangs about every new birth, and that the real seat of that Divinity is in the Hearts of all Creatures.
There is one more lesson that we ought not to miss. We have seen the magnificent results of harmonious action which is always synthetical and finds its highest expression in Love and Compassion issuing from the heart.
Sometimes the same force becomes converted into Hate, when once the centrifugal disintegrating force is set going and gains the ascendancy, selfish in nature, self-centred, it cuts away the bonds that bind man to his fellows; he tries, but in vain, to carry on an existence of his own, but he soon finds that he has no existence, no meaning, no life apart from the whole. The foolish virgins repent too late, their light has gone out, they have no oil of life with which to kindle their lamps anew. In their own blind conceit they are lost. Nay, but look! Have not some demons, spooks and malignant fiends got hold of them and, having gained an entrance, are now without their consent messengers of Disease and Death. Is this not so of the cells? Some little impulse causes them to pursue a course contrary to the interests of the whole; for a time they are centres of discord; and neuralgia, rheumatism, indigestion, etc., are the result. But anon the cells fall away and, as entities, die. The smaller containing entities, the Chromatin rods, little pregnant particles of life are set free. Losing their parental protection and cares, they go on with the impulse given them, till some malignant breeze sweeps over them and they become the victims and servants of hate, disease and Death. Are these not the germs of disease that science is fighting about just now? Verily! verily! who shall deny? These little escaped convicts, the rods, previously servants of Love, become now the free agents of disease. They are none other than the bacilli, associated with so many pestilences; and a further disintegration produces spores—the ingredients of bacilli. These are not the diseases, nor yet the cause (primary), they are merely the vehicles of disease. Can we not see how well this applies to every organism and organization as an entity? Poor lost bacilli, how hardly have ye been used by your masters!