iment and from
_a priori_ reasoning, we may say that where-ever we find creative power at
work there we are in the presence of subjective mind, whether it be working
on the grand scale of the cosmos, or on the miniature scale of the
individual. We may therefore lay it down as a principle that the universal
all-permeating intelligence, which has been considered in the second and
third sections, is purely subjective mind, and therefore follows the law of
subjective mind, namely that it is amenable to any suggestion, and will
carry out any suggestion that is impressed upon it to its most rigorously
logical consequences. The incalculable importance of this truth may not
perhaps strike the student at first sight, but a little consideration will
show him the enormous possibilities that are stored up in it, and in the
concluding section I shall briefly touch upon the very serious conclusions
resulting from it. For the present it will be sufficient to realize that
the subjective mind in ourselves is _the same_ subjective mind which is at
work throughout the universe giving rise to the infinitude of natural forms
with which we are surrounded, and in like manner giving rise _to ourselves
also_. It may be called the supporter of our individuality; and we may
loosely speak of our individual subjective mind as our personal share in
the universal mind. This, of course, does not imply the splitting up of the
universal mind into fractions, and it is to avoid this error that I have
discussed the essential unity of spirit in the third section, but in order
to avoid too highly abstract conceptions in the present stage of the
student's progress we may conveniently employ the idea of a personal share
in the universal subjective mind.

To realize our individual subjective mind in this manner will help us to
get over the great metaphysical difficulty which meets us in our endeavour
to make conscious use of first cause, in other words to create external
results by the power of our own thought. Ultimately there can be only one
first cause which is the universal mind, but because it is universal it
cannot, _as universal_, act on the plane of the individual and particular.
For it to do so would be for it to cease to be universal and therefore
cease to be the creative power which we wish to employ. On the other hand,
the fact that we are working for a specific definite object implies our
intention to use this universal power in application to a part