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pnotism acts entirely by suggestion, and he who paints or does other work entirely according to Tradition, also carries out what is or has been suggested to him. Men of earlier times who thus worked for thousands of years like the Egyptians in one style, were guided by the faith that it had been begun by the Creator or God. For men cannot conceive of creation as separate from pre-determined plan or end, and all because they cannot understand that Creative innate force, _potentia_, must have some result, or that the simplest Law once set agoing awakens, acquires strength in going and develops great Laws, which, with an all-susceptible or _capable_ material to work on, may, or _must_, create infinite ingenuities, so that in time there may be an organic principle with sentiency, and yet no Will, save in its exponents, or working to end or aim, but ever tending to further unfolding "a seizing and giving the fire of the living" ever onwards into Eternity, in which there may be a million times more perfect "mind" than we can now grasp. Now, having for many years attempted at least to familiarize myself with the aspect or sound, of this problem, though I could not solve it, it seems at last to be natural enough that even matter (which so many persist in regarding as a kind of dust or something resistant to the touch, but which I regard as infinite millions of degrees more subtle), may _think_ just as well as it may act in Instinct. It is, indeed, absurd to admit souls to idiots or savages, who have not the sense to live as comfortably as many animals, and yet deny it to the latter. When we really become familiar with the idea, it appears sensible enough. But its opponents do _not_ become familiar with it, it irritates them, they call it Atheistic, although it is nothing of the kind, just as if we were to say that a man who bravely and nobly pursued his way in life, doing his duty because it was his duty, and giving no thought as to future reward or punishment, must needs want _soul_ or be an Atheist. If all men were perfectly good, they would act morally and instinctively, without consciousness of behaving well, and if we felt a high ideal of Art it would be just the same. When Art was natural men never signed their names to their work, but now the Name takes precedence of the picture. Therefore, as we go backward into the night of things, we find, though we forget it all the time, that Instinct or the living in the Sp
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