ested on the external plane. This is according to
the strictly scientific conception of the universal law of growth; and we
may therefore briefly sum up the whole argument by saying that our thought
of anything forms a spiritual prototype of it, thus constituting a nucleus
or centre of attraction for all conditions necessary to its eventual
externalization by a law of growth inherent in the prototype itself.

VI.

THE LAW OF GROWTH.

A CORRECT understanding of the law of growth is of the highest importance
to the student of Mental Science. The great fact to be realized regarding
Nature is that it is natural. We may pervert the order of Nature, but it
will prevail in the long run, returning, as Horace says, by the back door
even though we drive it out with a pitchfork; and the beginning, the
middle, and the end of the law of Nature is the principle of growth from a
vitality inherent in the entity itself. If we realize this from the outset
we shall not undo our own work by endeavouring to _force_ things to become
that which by their own nature they are not. For this reason when the Bible
says that "he who believeth shall not make haste," it is enunciating a
great natural principle that success, depends on our using, and not
opposing, the universal law of growth. No doubt the greater the vitality we
put into the germ, which we have agreed to call the spiritual prototype,
the quicker it will germinate; but this is simply because by a more
realizing conception we put more growing-power into the seed than we do by
a feebler conception. Our mistakes always eventually resolve themselves
into distrusting the law of growth. Either we fancy we can hasten it by
some exertion of our own from _without_, and are thus led into hurry and
anxiety, not to say sometimes into the employment, of grievously wrong
methods; or else we give up all hope and so deny the germinating power of
the seed we have planted. The result in either case is the same, for in
either case we are in effect forming a fresh spiritual prototype of an
opposite character to our desire, which therefore neutralizes the one first
formed, and disintegrates it and usurps its place. The law is always the
same, that our Thought forms a spiritual prototype which, if left
undisturbed, will reproduce itself in external circumstances; the only
difference is in the sort of prototype we form, and thus evil is brought to
us by precisely the same law as good.

These consid