Page:Natural Phenomena and their Spiritual Lessons.djvu/30

18 sunshine, be analysed by the application of some spiritual prism, beyond the coloured spectrum heat-rays might be discovered, revealing the quality of their source. Nor is evidence of the truth of this explanation difficult to obtain. For, when the reflective powers are engaged in an effort to solve some difficult problem, the observant mind becomes conscious of a twofold operation. It selects and calls up from the memory such particular facts as relate to the subject of its inquiries; then arranges and ponders over them: and, when the solution sought is obtained, it is so sensible of a descent into them from a higher region, that even to its own perceptions it becomes apparent that thought is not its own, but an extraneous gift. Thus, then, it is that, by the chemistry of the influent light, the soul or essence of the bare facts acquired by the senses is extracted, and raised to a higher level;—our caterpillars are metamorphosed into butterflies.

Bare fact, like faith alone, is barren. The insect feeds voraciously, but merely appropriates and accumulates; it has no useful product and no progeny. So knowledge yields nothing to the higher nature within till the process of sublimation has passed upon it. Then, in its winged condition as rationality and intelligence, it can unite with corresponding good purposes, and become fruitful.

Proceeding further inwards, or upwards, we arrive at the more important translation, not from a lower intellectual plane to a higher, but from the intellect to the will,—the transmutation of truth into good. Here, again, the first state is one of voluntary external acquirement; and the eager interest experienced in the acquisition and apprehension of spiritual truths is most accurately