210 HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.
To starve and mortify the body does not enrich and beautify the soul. Body life and soul life are interlinked at every point. To injure one is to hurt the other. The best body is the best instrument for soul expression.
Since the time of Aristotle the men of science have sought to find those laws which bind together in one connected chain the long series of animals and plants. These men have found that one system of laws extends all the way up the scale, from the simple ameba without any special organs up to man with all his complex powers. If beings exist of still higher rank than man, the laws-of their existence are still the same as those which are in his constitution. Man is still incomplete, when measured by the standard of the laws in his own nature. In those higher beings these laws have their full expression. If we know these laws as they are in plan, then we can understand them in beings still higher. There is neither good science nor good logic in speaking of the higher existences as "incomprehensible" or "unknowable."
THE COMING RELIGION must state clearly the spiritual laws in the constitution of man. If it does this, it will clear up the mysteries of the Bible. As one example, that book asserts that man was made in the image and likeness of God. We know that if a small machine be made in the form of a large one, then the small one will be governed by exactly the same mechanical laws. We there' ore know that if man is in the image of God, then the laws of his constitution are the same, allowing for difference of per fection and greatness.
It follows that if we understand man we shall also
THE COMING RELIGION; 211
understand Jehovah. And if man obeys fully the
laws of his own being, then lie will be in harmony with
the Divine Being. The Bible not only implies but
asserts this. Moses tells the Israelites that the
authority for his code of laws was within their hearts.
And in Jeremiah we are told by Jehovah that the
system of laws, the TORAH, under the Messiah
should be " written
in their inner parts," or, as we would now express it, in the constitution of man. If this declaration be true, then we have already in the present book described the Kingdom of the Messiah, the constitution under
which he will reign.
We mean hereto assert that if the Bible account is
true, then the Divine mind has just the same number of faculties that we find in the mind of man. The divine faculties are arranged in the same order, on the same plan, and their laws of action are just the same as in the human mind. There is no more mystery about one than about the other. The Bible does not say that God is infinite and therefore beyond the
When laid on the head, the North temperate Zone corresponds to those brain faculties which have made man a civilized being
