The Edinburgh lectures on mental science / by T. Troward.

  • Thomas Troward
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Edinburgh lectures on mental science / by T. Troward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/140 page 6
    Form implies extension in space and also limita- tion within certain boundaries. Thought implies neither. When, therefore, we think of Life as existing in any particular form we associate it with the idea of extension in space, so that an elephant may be said to consist of a vastly larger amount of living substance than a mouse. But if we think of Life as the fact of livingness we do not associate it with any idea of extension, and we at once realize that the mouse is quite as much alive as the elephant, notwithstanding the difference in size. The important point of this distinction is that if we can conceive of anything as entirely devoid of the element of extension in space, it must be present in its entire totality anywhere and everywhere—that is to say, at every point of space simultaneously. The scientific definition of time is that it is the period occupied by a body in passing from one given point in space to another, and therefore according to this definition, when there is no space there can be no time ; and hence that conception of spirit which realizes it as devoid of the element of space must realize it as being devoid of the element of time also ; and we therefore find that the conception of spirit as pure Thought, and not as concrete Form, is the conception of it as subsisting perfectly independently of the elements of time and space. From this it follows that if
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3