The Hidden Power

I The Hidden Power 1 II The Perversion of Truth 42 III The "I Am" 59 IV Affirmative Power 63 V Submission 67 VI Completeness 74 VII The Principle of Guidance 81 VIII Desire as the Motive Power 85 IX Touching Lightly 92 X Present Truth 96 XI Yourself 99 XII Religious Opinions 105 XIII A Lesson from Browning 113 XIV The Spirit of Opulence 118 XV Beauty 123 XVI Separation and Unity 129 XVII Externalisation 141 XVIII Entering into the Spirit of It 146 XIX The Bible and the New Thought I.

The Son 153 II. The Great Affirmation 166 III. The Father 178 IV. Conclusion 185 XX Jachin and Boaz 192 XXI Hephzibah 197 XXII Mind and Hand 204 XXIII The Central Control 209 XXIV What is Higher Thought 213 XXV Fragments 215 THE HIDDEN POWER AND OTHER ESSAYS I THE HIDDEN POWER To realise fully how much of our present daily life consists in symbols is to find the answer to the old, old question, What is Truth? and in the degree in which we begin to recognise this we begin to approach Truth.

The realisation of Truth consists in the ability to translate symbols, whether natural or conventional, into their equivalents; and the root of all the errors of mankind consists in the inability to do this, and in maintaining that the symbol has nothing behind it.

The great duty incumbent on all who have attained to this knowledge is to impress upon their fellow men that there is an _inner side_ to things, and that until this _inner_ side is known, the things themselves are not known. There is an inner and an outer side to everything; and the quality of the superficial mind which causes it to fail in the attainment of Truth is its willingness to rest content with the outside only.

So long as this is the case it is impossible for a man to grasp the import of his own relation to the universal, and it is this relation which constitutes all that is signified by the word "Truth." So long as a man fixes his attention only on the superficial it is impossible for him to make any progress in knowledge.

He is denying that principle of "Growth" which is the root of all life, whether spiritual intellectual, or material, for he does not stop to reflect that all which he sees as the outer side of things can result only from some germinal principle hidden deep in the centre of their being.