Thomas Troward on Spirit and Matter

You call spirit alive and matter dead.

Look closer at the matter.

That steel block sits still on the table. Every atom inside it moves at unimaginable speed.

So motion isn't the line between living and dead.

Something else is.

Plant, fish, dog, and human are all equally alive, all clearly different.

The difference is intelligence.

Livingness is intelligence, measured in degrees.

Spirit's signature is Thought.

Matter's signature is Form.

Form takes up space. It has edges. It sits somewhere.

Thought has no edges. It doesn't sit anywhere in space or time.

Take away space, and time goes with it.

Pure Thought lives outside both: one everlasting now, one boundless here.

But don't run too far into pure Thought and forget Form.

Spirit without matter is a ghost with nothing to hold.

Matter without spirit is a shell with nothing driving it.

Neither extreme is the whole truth.

The truth is the two together, inside and outside of the same fact.

Matter is not the opposite of spirit.

Matter is spirit, slowed down enough to become visible.

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Further Reading

Troward, T. (1909). The Edinburgh lectures on mental science. Dodd, Mead and Company.