The Argument from Mentality.

CONSCIOUSNESS is not the 'hard problem' which it is called to-day if it is extended universally. If it is not extended universally it is not merely a hard problem, it is an insoluble problem, for there can be no reconciling mentality with pure materiality if it be conceived as devoid of the former. However if, as in the pantheistic conception of existence and the universe, everything which is called materiality is realised as something with a mental aspect, then consciousness ceases to be a problem altogether, and becomes only the most exquisite or intricate manifestation in our experience of a general principle.

   Everything then becomes a scale of mentality. Thus there will be no talk of something being less conscious than something else, for these are all constituent of the overall consciousness. As we could not process nor think without the elements of thought, nor could we communicate without the elements of language, so the universal consciousness of God could not be sustained without all the parts to it we see about us. Yet these are not the truest state of things, contrary to the narratives of particle physics, as an indefinite article is not the thing which most defines a human being but is only a tool of his, so a particle of dust, a clod of earth, is but a mental tool in the Mind of God. It is the sum of the total, that is greater than the sum of its parts, which is definitive as to the true reality of existence. The universe itself becomes but a meagre term of reflection before this. When a beam holds a roof for three hundred years, there is a mentality in the beam: 'Stay. Hold.', until it so happens that it is time for it to fall when the mentality is changed to 'Yield.'

   By this token arguments like design cease to signify, design is a philosophy confined to a workshop, it implies a schematic for something material, but the universe as material is only a secondary aspect of the more fundamental part which is mental. Even beyond this we come to divinity, to God, which we cannot fathom, as we cannot fathom an infinitely deep sea, but we know it to exist for we float and breathe upon it. Were this not so there could be no being in this world. The moment thought exists to say, 'this universe is dumb matter' we know that it is not, the moment consciousness arises to proclaim 'there is no God' we know that there is. As Chesterton observed in The Everlasting Man, 'it is demonstrated in the very speculations that have led to its being denied'. The rain and the stars, the sun and the moon, the snow and the wind, all have a language to themselves which they speak of themselves. Does not the wind blow? Does not the rain patter and pelt? Does not the sun warm and release scents in everything as spice is beaten, so a prophet draws out a generation's thoughts? Does not the moon sing a solitary tune in the rays which it throws on the night? These are languages we do not translate, they are evidence of thoughts undeciphered. It is no surprise therefore that so rarefied a thing as man should come to know and worship his God, nor is it any surprise that others should rather doubt of Him. His Being lives forever and requireth not our devotion. Only we who have come to know, and to have insight into this universal frame around us, to abstract and break loose of quantity and cause, require that we should know and love God. For once having seen the sun the cave dweller no more can live by his candle, but must go out and dwell in the land of light.