r otherwise it would have no conscious
individuality; but the power of the individualised mind rapidly rises as
it recognises its unity with the Infinite life, and its
thought-currents, whether well or ill directed, then assume a
proportionately great significance.

Hence the ill effects of wrongly directed thought are in some degree
mitigated in the great mass of mankind, and many causes are in operation
to give a right direction to their thoughts, though the thinkers
themselves are ignorant of what thought-power is. To give a right
direction to the thoughts of ignorant thinkers is the purpose of much
religious teaching, which these uninstructed ones must accept by faith
in bare authority because they are unable to realise its true import.
But notwithstanding the aids thus afforded to mankind, the general
stream of unregulated thought cannot but have an adverse tendency, and
hence the great object to which the instructed mind directs its power is
to free itself from the entanglements of disordered thought, and to help
others to do the same. To escape from this entanglement is to attain
perfect Liberty, which is perfect Power.

VI

The entanglement from which we need to escape has its origin in the very
same principle which gives rise to liberty and power. It is the same
principle applied under inverted conditions. And here I would draw
particular attention to the law that any sequence followed out in an
inverted order must produce an inverted result, for this goes a long way
to explain many of the problems of life. The physical world affords
endless examples of the working of "inversion." In the dynamo the
sequence commences with mechanical force which is ultimately transformed
into the subtler power of electricity; but invert this order, commence
by generating electricity, and it becomes converted into mechanical
force, as in the motor. In the one order the rotation of a wheel
produces electricity, and in the opposite order electricity produces the
rotation of a wheel. Or to exhibit the same principle in the simplest
arithmetical form, if 10/2=5 then 10/5=2. "Inversion" is a factor of the
greatest magnitude and has to be reckoned with; but I must content
myself here with only indicating the general principle that the same
power is capable of producing diametrically opposite effects if it be
applied under opposite conditions, a truth which the so-called
"magicians" of the middle ages expressed by two triangles pla