The prospect is wonderful beyond our present conception, and full of
increasing glory if we realize the true foundation on which it rests. But
herein lies the danger. It consists in not realizing that the Infinite of
the Impersonal _is_ and also that the Infinite of the Personal _is_. Both
are Infinite and so require differentiation through our own personality,
but in their essential quality each is the exact balance of the other--not
in contradiction to each other, but as complementary to one another, each
supplying what the other needs for its full expression, so that the two
together make a perfect whole. If, however, we see this relation and our
own position as the connecting link between them, we shall see only
ourselves as the Personal Factor; but the more we realize, both by theory
and experience, the power of human personality brought into contact with
the Impersonal Soul of Nature, and employed with a Knowledge of its power
and a corresponding exercise of the will, the less we shall be inclined to
regard ourselves as the supreme factor in the chain of cause and effect
Consideration of this argument points to the danger of much of the present
day teaching regarding the exercise of Thought Power as a creative agency.
The principle on which this teaching is based is sound and legitimate for
it is inherent in the nature of things; but the error is in supposing that
we ourselves are the ultimate source of Personality instead of merely the
distributors and specializers of it. The logical result of such a mental
attitude is that putting ourselves in the place of all that is worshiped as
God which is spoken of in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians and other parts of Scripture. By the very hypothesis of the
case we then know no higher will than our own, and so are without any
Unifying Principle to prevent the conflict of wills which must then
arise--a conflict which must become more and more destructive the greater
the power possessed by the contending parties, and which, if there were no
counterbalancing power, must result in the ultimate destruction of the