The substance known as Polonium, even by its near approach to an electric bell, causes it to ring, and if etheric waves can thus be started by an inanimate substance, why should we suppose that our thought has less power, especially when metaphysically we cannot avoid the conclusion that the whole creation must have its origin in the Divine Thought?

From such considerations as these, I think we may reasonably infer that if the mind be illuminated by a range of thought coming from a higher mind, there is no limit to the power which may thus be exercised over the material world, and that therefore St. Paul’s statement regarding the transmutation of the present physical body, is one which should be included in the circle of our ideas, as being within the scope of the Laws of the Universe when their action is specialized by the power of the Word (1 Cor. xv); and similarly with regard to other statements to the same effect contained in the Bible.  What is wanted is the realization of a greater Word than that which we form from the current experience of the race.  The race has formed its Word on the basis of the lower principles of our being, and if we are to advance beyond this, the Law of the subject clearly indicates that it can only be by adopting a more fundamental Word, or Idea, than that which we have hitherto thought to include the entire range of possibilities.  The Law of our further Evolution demands a Word not formed from past experiences, but based upon the eternal principle of the All-Originating Life itself.  And this is in strict accord with scientific method.  If we had always allowed ourselves to be ruled by past experiences we should still be primitive savages; and it is only by the gradual perception of underlying principles, that we have attained the degree of civilization we have reached to-day; so what the Bible puts before us is simply the application to the life in ourselves of the maxim that “Principle is not limited by Precedent.”

Now the Bible Promises serve to put us on the track of this Principle:  they suggest lines of enquiry.  And the enquiry leads to the conclusion that the two ultimate factors are the Law and the Word.  What we have missed hitherto is the conception of the limitless possibilities of the Law, and the limitless power of the Word.  On one occasion the Master said to the Jews “Ye know not the Scriptures neither the power of God” (Matth. xxii, 29) and the same is the case with ourselves.  The true “Scripture” is the “scriptura rerum” or the Law indelibly written in the nature of things, and the written Scriptures are true only because they contain the statement of the Principle of the Law.  Therefore until we see the Principle of the Law we “know not the Scriptures.”  On the other hand, until we see the Principle of the operation of the Word through the Law, we do not know “the Power of God”; and it is only as we come to perceive the interaction of the Law and the Word that we see the beginning of the way that leads to Life and Liberty.