Page:Democratic Ideals (Olympia Brown).djvu/90



The Radiant Center

at a congress in Copenhagen, "the most important things for us to know are the unknowable, and the search for reality leads us inevitably to mysticism/ Edison says, "Science is mostly imagination." He relates it absolutely to New Thought teaching when he says, "It is by conceiving what might be before one has seen the way to realize it practically that scientists have been buoyed up through the period of experiment." We therefore have good authority in philosophy and in science for venturing to predicate of the Infinite all that our finite minds can possibly conceive of the highest and best, knowing that while it certainly transcends that conception it cannot contradict it. Our highest conception of God is therefore a base from which to measure the finite.

The point that is most strongly and constantly emphasized by New Thought people is that one must find the Divine in himself and rely upon that. I have myself defined New Thought as the philosophy which recognizes man's inherent divinity. Some make statements so strong along this line that all help, inspiration, salvation from any force external to themselves are virtually excluded. Emphasizing the unity of life and that all is God, they put it, "God and I are one and I am the one." I have heard this stated from the New Thought platform in so many