The Secret of the Ages

The age’s greatest discovery, Collier says, is not another machine or scientific marvel. It is the recognition of a “Life Principle” working throughout nature—and the possibility of working with it consciously.

Across nature, life meets changing conditions by adjusting its form and behavior. Collier sees behind these adjustments one persistent creative power rather than a collection of isolated accidents.

What makes the Life Principle a practical discovery for human beings?

• The intellect can replace the creative power of life.
• The mind can give conscious direction to its activity.✓Correct answer
• It proves that nature can eliminate every obstacle.
• It guarantees that every wish will appear immediately.

Nature already expresses the Life Principle, but humans can bring intention to it. The discovery is conscious cooperation, not instant wish fulfillment.

A living thing may adapt without forming a deliberate goal. A person can picture an end, choose a direction, and organize thought and action around it; for Collier, that is the decisive difference.

“They are beginning to get an inkling of the infinite power it puts in their hands,” Collier writes. The power is placed in human hands, but he does not say the individual ego created it.

Consciously directing the Life Principle means becoming the sole source of creative power.

False✓Correct answer

Collier presents the power as larger and more fundamental than the individual. The mind directs and cooperates with it; the ego does not manufacture it.