FOXTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 452, 11 March 1909, Page 3

FOXTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

A meeting of the Foxton Philosophical literary Society was held on Tuesday night in All Saints’ school room, Mr Barnard presiding. An interesting paper was read by Mr Haslett, in which he dealt with the question of mind and its relation to the soul. When a child was born, he stated, it was made up of, say, three essentials, viz., matter, zone or energy, and soul. Of these, matter, was the only thing tangible ; zone, or energy, was that which infused matter and gave it life and motion, while the soul was the spark of the Divine intelligence, which was the ego of the whole. Midway between soul and matter was mind, and the question was how to determine mind and how it worked between these two parts of the whole. The brain and nerve substances were matter, and the zone or energy was the forpe acting on this matter and giving ps mind. The force acting on. mind gave us thought. Mind was not a force ; it was only the instrument, and could only be likened to a rapidly changing kaleidoscope, accepting, reflecting, and digesting experiences at all times. We were apt to be a little hazy in bur conception of thought. Take, for instance, the brains of a live and dead man. Therewb absolutely no difference in material, but when

life or energy or zone (all the terms were the same) infused the brain, we then had mind in all its processes of development, i.e., first, sub-consciously, as when we winked the eyes to protect them, and .in the process of digesting food ; second, consciously, as in thinking, reasoning, etc. ; third, super-consciously, by which the mind and soul acted in accordance with the original and divine plan of man. He held that God had placed in each of us a part of Himself, and that when a child was born, this part was a mere spark without individuality or personality ; that it was placed in us to win back by our own free will to that perfection from which it evolved. The soul should be the dominant and always growing part of us, but instead we generally reversed the order and allowed the senses and flesh to dominate and evolve the thought so that when we matured, we scarcely recognised that we had this divine spark at all. There was something in us above the mind, which the speaker likened to an irresponsive instrument, or harp swinging in the wind, emitting just such sounds as its condition could produce. Mind, so far from governing the body, could not govern even itself. The only perfect example we had of a perfect life in the flesh was Jesus Christ, Who was the first man since the fall of humanity to show what human beings potentially were. The life He lived was open to us all; happiness, calm and peace were ours if we would claim them. Might we not approach our Creator, without fear or trembling, love Him and cleave to Him, and from Him receive all things whatsoever we might ask. A number of questions were then asked by those present, and considerable discussion followed, after which a hearty vote of thanks was accorded Mr Haslett for his address.