ow for
ourselves; and this intelligent growth consists in our increasing
recognition of the universal law, which has brought us as far as we have
yet got, and of our own individual relation to that law, based upon the
fact that we ourselves are the most advanced product of it. It is a great
maxim that Nature obeys us precisely in proportion as we first obey Nature.
Let the electrician try to go counter to the principle that electricity
must always pass from a higher to a lower potential and he will effect
nothing; but let him submit in all things to this one fundamental law, and
he can make whatever particular applications of electrical power he will.

These considerations show us that what differentiates the higher from the
lower degree of intelligence is the recognition of its own self-hood, and
the more intelligent that recognition is, the greater will be the power.
The lower degree of self-recognition is that which only realizes itself as
an entity separate from all other entities, as the _ego_ distinguished from
the _non-ego_. But the higher degree of self-recognition is that which,
realizing its own spiritual nature, sees in all other forms, not so much
the _non-ego_, or that which is not itself, as the _alter-ego_, or that
which is itself in a different mode of expression. Now, it is this higher
degree of self-recognition that is the power by which the Mental Scientist
produces his results. For this reason it is imperative that he should
clearly understand the difference between Form and Being; that the one is
the mode of the relative and, the mark of subjection to conditions, and
that the other is the truth of the absolute and is that which controls
conditions.

Now this higher recognition of self as an individualization of pure spirit
must of necessity control all modes of spirit which have not yet reached
the same level of self-recognition. These lower modes of spirit are in
bondage to the law of their own being because they do not know the law;
and, therefore, the individual who has attained to this knowledge can
control them through that law. But to understand this we must inquire a
little further into the nature of spirit. I have already shown that the
grand scale of adaptation and adjustment of all parts of the cosmic scheme
to one another exhibits the presence _somewhere_ of a marvellous
intelligence, underlying the whole, and the question is, where is this
intelligence to be found? Ultimately we can only