My three books, “Man’s Relationship with God”, a “Reconciliation with Science and War”, and this book, are intended to be a trilogy. Let me first recapitulate the essence of these three books, and then try to reduce what I have to say to the utmost simplicity.
The principal and fundamental idea in my book “Man’s Relationship with God” is that all true relationships preclude analysis, and can be analysed only in so far as they are defective. So if you try to analyse them, you destroy them; at least you do if you succeed in analysing them. The final idea in the book is that the next step to take in man’s guidance of evolution is to transfer the idea of the interpenetration of two minds, from the world of military command where its efficacy has been appreciated for a long time, to the civilian world, where instinct warns of its dangers. Indeed the whole book is an account of the fearful dangers of attempting such an interpenetration, without a corresponding sense of communion with the Divine Spirit. Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights sums up to perfection what those dangers are. All other thoughts in the book are subsidiary to these.
The principal idea in my “Reconciliation with Science and War” is that there is no permanence of thought in the mental world, anymore than there is permanence of substance in the physical world. Only in a companionship with the Almighty is there any permanence. And even an indwelling with Him changes. I compress the theory of consciousness developed in Man’s Relationship with God into a more philosophical form; and suggest that the symbolism of my theory is that every attitude of mind has its own logic. All disciplined thought takes place in an attitude of mind, and indeed all thought does; and any attitude rests on certain unspoken and usually unconscious assumptions, some of which may be true and some false. Jung was mistaken when he said in the last chapter of Psychological Types that “Attitude” was an a priori orientation which was not susceptible to analysis; it can be analysed on the basis of the assumptions on which it rests. And any attitude exists within an envelope of consciousness that imposes a rigid discipline on the thought that can take place within that attitude of mind. In other words, the envelope shapes the reasoning within that attitude of mind, and so provides its unique logic. For example, worthwhile legal thought or worthwhile military thought can only take place within the professional frames of mind of these two professions. And of course logic, or reason, can only tell you what conclusions are true if the basic assumptions of that attitude of mind are true. In other words, if the assumptions are not entirely valid, neither are the conclusions; and all mental discipline is cut down to size.