The Science of Mind, by Ernest Shurtleff Holmes [1926], at sacred-texts.com
The evolution of man brings him automatically to a time when real individuality is produced. From that day any further evolution must be through his conscious coöperation with Life. All nature waits on man's self-recognition and is always ready to obey his will; but he must use nature's forces in accordance with her laws.
Science is the knowledge of certain facts built around some known principle of being. Man never creates; he discovers and uses. In this way all sciences are evolved. We live in a Universe of Law through which runs an element of Self-Knowing Intelligence. "All's Love, yet all's Law."
The Law has done all that it can do for man automatically. It has brought him to the point of individuality, and must now let him alone to make this discovery for himself. Man is potentially perfect, but free will and self-choice cause him to appear imperfect. In reality, all that he can destroy is the embodiment of himself, for the Divine Spark is always intact in Instinctive Man.
Man awakes to self-consciousness, finding himself already equipped with a mentality, a body and an environment. Gradually he discovers one law of nature after another until he conquers his environment through his acquisition of natural forces. Everywhere he finds that nature does his bidding, in so far as he understands her laws and uses them along the lines of their inherent being; for he must first obey nature, then she will obey him.
Man discovers his ability to think, and begins to realize that from within comes a reaction to his thought. He comes to realize that he is threefold in his nature; that he can consciously think; that he has within a mentality which acts upon his thoughts; and that he has a body which is affected by his thinking.
He next discovers that he can think for others, causing a corresponding action in and through their bodies. In this way
he discovers that there is a mental medium through which thought operates. He now realizes himself to be a thinking center in a Universal Mind.
Man next discovers that his affairs are also controlled by thought, and that he can likewise think for others and aid in the control of their affairs.
He now realizes that everything in the visible world is an effect; that back of all effects there are ideas which are the real causes of these effects. The Divine Ideas are perfect, but man has the ability to cause them to appear imperfect. Through right thinking he is able to uncover the appearance of imperfection and reveal the Perfect Idea.
Man's idea of the Deity evolves with his other ideas. After a belief in many gods, he comes to realize that there is One Mind and One Spirit back of all manifestation.
There is One Spirit or Self-Conscious Life acting through the Medium of One Mind or Subjective law, producing many manifestations. Multiplicity comes from Unity without breaking up the Unity of the Whole.
Spirit is Self-Knowing, but Law is automatic and obeys the will of Spirit, having no alternative other than to obey.
Like all law, the Law of Mind is an Impersonal Force, and because of Its nature is compelled to act.
Soul and Universal Subjective Mind have the same meaning and are the Creative Medium of all thought and action. Soul is also the Substance of Spirit; i.e., It is the unformed Stuff from which all forms are evolved.
Spirit, acting upon Soul, produces Creation; Spirit, Soul and Substance intersphere each other; each has omnipresence. Creation takes place within Spirit and is the result of the Contemplation of Spirit.
Creation is eternally going on; change is always taking place within that which is changeless; forms appear and disappear in that which is formless.
God thinks or knows within Himself; and as the result of this inner action Creation manifests. Creation is the play of Life upon Itself through Divine Self-Imagination. Spirit must create in order to be expressed.
Spirit, Life, Soul, Substance, Law and Unity are all coexistent and coeternal with each other. The only thing that changes is form.
Life makes things out of Itself by becoming the thing that It makes; there is no effort in the process.
Conscious Mind and Spirit mean the same; they denote that part of the Trinity which is Self-Knowing or God.
Subconscious and Subjective Mind, Soul and Mental Medium, Universal Subjectivity or Law, all have the same meaning; they denote that part of the Trinity which acts as Law.
Body, Creation or the manifest Universe, is simply the result of the Trinity which acts as Law.
Body--Creation or the manifest Universe--is simply the result of the Knowingness of Spirit through Law.
One element alone is really self-conscious and that is Spirit. Both Law and Manifestation are automatic and must react to Spirit.
Soul or Subjective Mind, Substance or unformed matter, and Conscious Spirit permeate all things and all people. There is an Intelligence acting through everything, and everything responds to intelligence.
It cannot be too plainly stated that Spirit, or Conscious Intelligence, is the only Self-Assertive Principle in the universe. "Spirit is the power that knows Itself," and is the only power that is Self-Knowing. Everything else is subject to Spirit. The sole and only operation of Spirit is through Its Word. The Word, acting as Law through Substance, produces Creation.