Law of Sequence

And throughout the entire Cosmos is ever manifest the Law of Sequence.  Events proceed in a continuous stream, ever flowing onward.  No event is separate or isolated.  Every event has its precedent, also its subsequent and consequent.  Everything has its cause and its effect. Events compose a continuous and unbroken stream.

The Law of Sequence causes all things to proceed in a continuous stream or procession of events. “Continuous” means “unbroken; uninterrupted; connected; with no intervening space.” An “Event” is a “happening; something that occurs; the consequent or result of any action.” Therefore the Law of Sequence causes all happenings, occurrences, or events to flow, proceed, and evolve from previous events, happenings or occurrences; and likewise to result in subsequent events, happenings or occurrences, which flow, proceed, and evolve from them. There is always a “something before” and a “something after” every event, happening, or occurrence. Every event has reasons, and is in itself one of the reasons for that which must follow after. Just as no link in a continuous chain can escape having a preceding and succeeding link, so no event can fail to have precedent and subsequent events connected with and related to it. No event can be isolated from the Cosmic Chain of Sequence, or the Cosmic Stream of Events. No event, and no thing, can stand alone in the Cosmos. Every thing and every event is interdependent, from the very nature of the Cosmos itself. Thus we see that there can be no such thing as “Chance” or “accidents” in the Cosmos. Nothing ever “merely happens,” in the usual sense of the phrase. Everything, every event, every happening, has its preceding causes, and from it will emerge the succeeding effects—all being links in the continuous chain of Sequence. We recognize these things, dimly, in everyday life, and call them the workings of Cause and Effect. But the Aphorism makes a distinction here and informs us that that which men mistakenly call Cause and Effect, “in truth, are but relative stages of the Cosmic Sequence. Let us proceed to a consideration of this truth.

The Aphorism (#11) also says: "Consciousness always produces Activity, and manifests Motion."  Modern psychology also bears out this statement.  Prof. William James has brought out this point most forcibly in his works.  He says, among much else on the same subject:  "All Consciousness is Motor"; also: "Using sweeping terms and ignoring exceptions, we might say that every possible feeling produces a movement, and that the movement is a movement of the entire organism, and of each and all its parts...In short, a process set up in the centers reverberates everywhere, and in some way or other affects the organism throughout, making its activities either greater or less."  Is it no plain that, granted the existence of the Cosmic Will in its aspect of a World-Brain, then every state of consciousnesswithin it must produce activity and motion within it; and must also manifest the corresponding physical and material changes in its substance and organic structure?   Does not this, coupled with the fact that consciousness depends upon constant change, give us, in the words of the Aphorism, "the explanation of the phenomena of the involution and evolution of the Cosmos, with all the incident! thereof?  Does not this explain to us the working of the Law of Sequence?