The Law is for All

Chapter I * Verse 59 81 truths; to the acquisition of the power to think in a manner totally foreign to the normal mind, the rare possession of the greatest thinkers of the world. A further development of the vision brought the con­ sciousness that the structure of the universe was highly orga­ nized, that certain stars were of greater magnitude and brilliancy than the rest. I began to seek similes to help me to explain myself. Several such attempts are mentioned later in this note. Here again are certain analogies with some of the properties of infinite series. The reader must not be shocked at the idea of a number which is not increased by addition or multiplication, a series of infinite series, each one of which may be twice as long as its predecessor, and so on. There is no “mystical humbug” about this. As Mr. Russell shows, truths of this order are more certain than the most universally accepted axioms; in fact, many axioms accepted by the intel­ lect of the average man are not true at all. But in order to appreciate these truths, it is necessary to educate the mind to thought of an order which is at first sight incompatible with rationality. I may here digress for a moment in order to demonstrate how this vision led directly to the understanding of the mech­ anism of certain phenomena which have hitherto been dis­ missed with a shrug of the shoulders as incomprehensible. Example No. 1. I began to become aware of my own mental processes; I thought of my consciousness as the Commander- in-Chief of an army. There existed a staff of specialists to deal with various contingencies. There was an intelligence depart­ ment to inform me of my environment. There was a council which determined the relative importance of the data pre­ sented to them—it required only a slight effort of imagina­ tion to think of this council as in debate; I could picture to myself some tactically brilliant proposal being vetoed by the Quartermaster-General. It was only one step to dramatize the scene, and it flashed upon me in a moment that here was the explanation of “double personality”: that illusion was no more than a natural personification of internal conflict, just as the savage attributes consciousness to trees and rocks. Example No. 2. While at Montauk I had put my sleeping bag to dry in the sun. When I went to take it in, I remarked, laughingly, “Your bedtime, Master Bag,” as if it were a small boy and I its nurse. This was entirely frivolous, but the