Thomas Troward - The Law and the Word

writings he was wholly unacquainted. A loan of Bergson's "Creative

Evolution" produced no comment for several weeks, when it was returned

with the characteristic remark, "I've tried my best to get hold of him,

but I don't know what he is talking about." I mention the remark as

being characteristic only because it indicates his extreme modesty and

disregard of exhaustive scientific research.

The Bergson method of scientific expression was unintelligible to his

mind, trained to intuitive reasoning. The very elaborateness and

microscopic detail that makes Bergson great is opposed to Judge

Troward's method of simplicity. He cared not for complexities, and the

intricate minutiæ of the process of creation, but was only concerned

with its motive power--the spiritual principles upon which it was

organized and upon which it proceeds.

Although the conservator of truth of every form and degree wherever

found, Judge Troward was a ruthless destroyer of sham and pretence. To

those submissive minds that placidly accept everything indiscriminately,

and also those who prefer to follow along paths of well-beaten opinion,

because the beaten path is popular, to all such he would perhaps appear

to be an irreverent iconoclast seeking to uproot long accepted dogma and

to overturn existing faiths. Such an opinion of Judge Troward's work

could not prevail with any one who has studied his teachings.

His reverence for the fundamental truths of religious faith was

profound, and every student of his writings will testify to the great

constructive value of his work. He builded upon an ancient foundation a

new and nobler structure of human destiny, solid in its simplicity and

beautiful in its innate grandeur.

But to the wide circle of Judge Troward's friends he will best and most

gloriously be remembered as a teacher. In his magic mind the

unfathomable revealed its depths and the illimitable its boundaries;

metaphysics took on the simplicity of the ponderable, and man himself

occupied a new and more dignified place in the Cosmos. Not only did he

perceive clearly, but he also possessed that quality of mind even more

rare than deep and clear perception, that clarity of expression and

exposition that can carry another and less-informed mind along with it,

on the current of its understanding, to a logical and comprehended

conclusion.

In his books, his lectures and his personality he was always ready to

take the student by the hand, and in perfect simplicity and friendliness

to walk and talk with him about the deeper mysteries of life--the life

that includes death--and to shed the brilliant light of his wisdom upon

the obscure and difficult problems that torment sincere but rebellious

minds.

His artistic nature found expression in brush and canvas and his great

love for the sea is reflected in many beautiful marine sketches. But if

painting was his recreation, his work was the pursuit of Truth wherever

to be found, and in whatever disguise.

His life has enriched and enlarged the lives of many, and all those who

knew him will understand that in helping others he was accomplishing

exactly what he most desired. Knowledge, to him, was worth only what it

yielded in uplifting humanity to a higher spiritual appreciation, and to

a deeper understanding of God's purpose and man's destiny.

A man, indeed! He strove not for a place,

Nor rest, nor rule. He daily walked with God.

His willing feet with service swift were shod--

An eager soul to serve the human race,

Illume the mind, and fill the heart with grace--

Hope blooms afresh where'er those feet have trod.

PAUL DERRICK.

If I were asked what, in my opinion, distinguishes the thought of the

present day from that of a previous generation, I should feel inclined

to say, it is the fact that people are beginning to realize that Thought

is a power in itself, one of the great forces of the Universe, and

ultimately the greatest of forces, directing all the others. This idea

seems to be, as the French say, "in the air," and this very well

expresses the state of the case--the idea is rapidly spreading through

many countries and through all classes, but it is still very much "in

the air." It is to a great extent as yet only in a gaseous condition,

vague and nebulous, and so not leading to the practical results, both

individual and collective, which might be expected of it, if it were

consolidated into a more workable form. We are like some amateurs who

want to paint finished pictures before they have studied the elements of

Art, and when they see an artist do without difficulty what they vainly

attempt, they look upon him as a being specially favoured by Providence,

instead of putting it down to their own want of knowledge. The idea is

true. Thought _is_ the great power of the Universe. But to make it

practically available we must know something of the principles by which

it works--that it is not a mere vaporous indefinable influence floating

around and subject to no known laws, but that on the contrary, it

follows laws as uncompromising as those of mathematics, while at the

same time allowing unlimited freedom to the individual.

Now the purpose of the following pages, is to suggest to the reader the

lines on which to find his way out of this nebulous sort of thought into

something more solid and reliable. I do not profess, like a certain

Negro preacher, to "unscrew the inscrutable," for we can never reach a

point where we shall not find the inscrutable still ahead of us; but if

I can indicate the use of a screw-driver instead of a hatchet, and that

the screws should be turned from left to right, instead of from right to

left, it may enable us to unscrew some things which would otherwise

remain screwed down tight. We are all beginners, and indeed the

hopefulness of life is in realizing that there are such vistas of

unending possibilities before us, that however far we may advance, we

shall always be on the threshold of something greater. We must be like

Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up--heaven defend me from ever feeling

quite grown up, for then I should come to a standstill; so the reader

must take what I have to say simply as the talk of one boy to another in

the Great School, and not expect too much.

The first question then is, where to begin. Descartes commenced his book

with the words "Cogito, ergo sum." "I think, therefore I am," and we

cannot do better than follow his example. There are two things about

which we cannot have any doubt--our own existence, and that of the world

around us. But what is it in us that is aware of these two things, that

hopes and fears and plans regarding them? Certainly not our flesh and

bones. A man whose leg has been amputated is able to think just the

same. Therefore it is obvious that there is something in us which

receives impressions and forms ideas, that reasons upon facts and

determines upon courses of action and carries them out, which is not the

physical body. This is the real "I Myself." This is the Person we are

really concerned with; and it is the betterment of this "I Myself" that

makes it worth while to enquire what our Thought has to do in the

matter.

Equally true it is on the other hand that the forces of Nature around us

do not think. Steam, electricity, gravitation, and chemical affinity do