MATERIAL sense always wears the badge of limitation. Controlled by this sense, mortals not only entertain limited beliefs about all things, but also manifest resultant conditions of limitation in all ways. In no other particular, perhaps, is this false sense so disastrous in its effects as in the belief that good is limited. Through this belief mortals are led to apportion good in thought to localities, or to periods of time, or to circumstances, thereby closing the door to the consciousness of its all-presence and to the infinite possibilities which accompany this consciousness.
Mortals are likewise led to suppose that the individual appropriation of good entails its partial absorption and proportionate diminution; in other words, that the manifestation of good by one individual in temporal affairs, notably in commercial success, necessarily implies a decrease in the amount of good possible to his neighbor. This reasoning gives rise to competition instead of cooperation, and tends to hide from consciousness the true brotherhood of man; it also leads in the last analysis to the conclusion that good is subject in varying degrees to personal control or possession, a conclusion which is itself the source of all envy and rivalry.
As a natural sequence of this false sense of good, evil becomes to mortal thought a thing of place and time and circumstance. Most pernicious of all, however, its specific manifestations come to be regarded as personal allotments or belongings, and owner- ship comes to include not only the voluntary holding to that which is desirable and beneficent, but also the involuntary acceptance of that which burdens and embarrasses. In other words, the entire conception of "mine" and "thine," with all the complexity which this concept be gets, is an acquired or educated belief, and arises from the human parceling of good and evil.
