It is on this account that Race-thought, simply as such, is opposed to the
attempt of the individual to pass into a higher order of life. It limits
him by strong currents of negative suggestion based on the fallacy that the
perpetuation of the race requires the death of the individual;[5] and it is
only when the individual sees that this is not true, and that his race-
nature constitutes the ground out of which his new Individuality is to be
formed, that he becomes able to oppose the negative power of race-thought.
He does this by destroying it with its own weapon, that is, by finding in
the race-nature itself the very material to be used by the Spirit for
building-up the New Man. This is a discovery on the spiritual plane
equivalent to the discovery on the physical plane that we can make iron
float by the same law by which it sinks. It is the discovery that what we
call the mortal part of us is capable of being brought under a higher
application of the Universal Law of Life, which will transmute it into an
immortal principle. When we see what we call the mortal part of us in this
light we can employ the very principle on which the negative race-thought
is founded as a weapon for the destruction of that thought in our own
minds.

The basis of the negative race-thought is the idea that physical death is
an essential part of the Normal Standard of Personality, and that the body
is composed of so much neutral material with which death can do what it
likes. But it is precisely this neutrality of matter that makes it just as
amenable to the Law of Life as to the Law of Death--it is simply neutral
and not an originating power on either side; so then when we realize that
our Normal Standard of Personality is not subject to death, but is the
Eternal Essence and Being of Life itself, then we see that this neutrality
of matter--its inability to make selection or take initiative on its own
account--is just what makes it the plastic medium for the expression of