The very statement of this question shows the correct answer; for
how can a force acting in one direction be an integral part of a force
acting in the opposite direction? How can the force which pulls a thing
down be an integral part of the force which builds it up? To suppose,
therefore, that the limitations of the law are an integral portion of the
law itself is a _reductio ad absurdum_.
For these reasons the argument from the past experience of the race counts
for nothing; and when we examine the theological argument we shall find
that it is only the old argument from past experience in another dress. It
is alleged that death is the will of God. How do we know that it is the
will of God? Because the facts prove it so, is the ultimate answer of all
religious systems with one exception; so here we are back again at the old
race-experience as the criterion of truth. Therefore the theological
argument is nothing but the materialistic argument disguised. It is in our
more or less _conscious_ acceptance of the materialistic argument, under
any of its many disguises, that the limitation of life is to be found--not
in the Law of Life itself; and if we are to bring into manifestation the
infinite possibilities latent in that Law it can only be by looking
steadily into the _principle_ of the Law and resolutely denying everything
that opposes it.
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