Glossary
1916 work, complete introduction and 24 parts
Charles F. Haanel
Glossary
A Vocabulary of Words used in the text of "The Master Key," specially explained.
ABSOLUTE—That which cannot be measured, determined, limited, expressed; the fundamentally and self-existently real from which all other reality springs.
ACCRETION—Growth or accumulation by external additions.
ALTRUISM The instinct and emotion which prompts to effort on behalf of others.
ANALYTICAL—Proceeding by analysis; the separating of anything into first principles.
ANTHROPOMORPHIC—The ascription of human attributes, feelings and conduct to the Deity; the natural result of the limitation of human thought and language.
APPERCEPTION—The mental process which associates and brings to attention all the ideas and memories associated with the central thought to which the attention is directly given.
ARCANA—An inner secret or mystery; something hidden from the mass of men; one of the great secrets which the alchemists sought to discover.
ATTENTION—The act or process of giving especial clearness to one or more particulars in the complex content of consciousness. Thus the difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of a Newton consists principally in this, that the one is capable of a more continuous attention than the other.
BELIEF—Confidence in the truth of a proposition which is felt to lack positive proof; acceptance without proof; that which is believed; a creed.
CELL—The smallest element of an organized body that manifests independent vital activities. The tissues of the human body are an aggregate of cells and their products; they are from 1-125 to 1-5000 of an inch in diameter.
CONCENTRATE—To draw or direct to or toward a common centre.
CONCEPTION—The act of grasping two or more attributes into the unity of thought which we call a concept.
CONSCIOUSNESS—All forms of sensation, feeling, perception, planning and thought; a comprehensive tern for the complement of all our cognitive energies.
COSMIC—Pertaining to the universe as a harmonious and orderly system as opposed to chaotic.
COSMOLOGICAL—Relating to the nature and laws of the cosmos as an instituted and alterable order of things, as a cosmological argument.
DEDUCTION—Reasoning from the general to the particular; deduction proceeds from a general principle, through an admitted instance to a conclusion.
DIFFERENTIATION—The process of making or becoming different, as the hypothesis that the characteristic cell growth and divergent particularization of all organisms are due to environment and local conditions as opposed to inherited differentiation by which the characteristics are inherent in the composition of the embryo.
EGO—The "I" which thinks, feels and acts; the conscious individual or the thinking self as distinguished from all objects of thought and from its own states or powers; the pure principle of personal identity.
ELECTRICITY—A material agency which, when in motion, exhibits magnetic, chemical and thermal effects.
ELOHIM—The Hebrew title of most frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, expressing absolute Divine power.
EVOLUTION The unity of action exhibited in the operations of nature; the act or process of evolving; the succession of changes by which a germ passes from a simple to a complex condition. "With each succeeding Kingdom, evolution has changed its direction upward from the physical to the psychical."—Funk.
ELECTRON The smallest known component of matter; always associated with an unvarying unit charge of negative electricity.
FAITH—Active belief; belief which amounts to a basis for action upon the accepted premises.
GERMINATE—The first act of growth, in a seed, spore or ovum.
GLOSSARY—An explanatory vocabulary dealing with a class of words, as of those of a dialect or a science.
GOD The embodiment or some aspect of reality or of some being regarded as the ultimate principle of the universe.
GRAVITATION—The tendency of every particle of matter in the universe toward every other particle; also the law which expresses this force which is; the accelerating tendency of bodies toward the centre of the earth is equal to the earth's attraction minus the centrifugal force arising from the rotation of the earth on its axis.
HARMONY—Completeness and perfection resulting from diversity in unity; agreement in relation; orderliness.
IDEA—A thought which is conceived to be in a measure independent of the thinker, and, in a sense, self existent, "Thought" is used to name the presentation which is the direct product of the active mind and which would not and could not exist apart from the acting mind, while "idea" is used to name the presentation of the mind which is no longer considered as acting; a presentation which might even exist apart from, and independently of, a mind or its activities. A thought is felt to be peculiar to the one thinking it, while the idea is felt to be, in a measure, self-determined or due to the nature of that with which it is associated so that all minds would foam it the same; the term still feels the influence of Plato's conception of the ideas as the forms of fundamental reality.
IDEALIZE—To render ideal, to conform to some mental standard as of perfection.
INHIBIT—To restrict by prohibition; to check; to suppress.
IMAGINATION—The act or power of combining products of past experiences in new, modified or ideal forms. The creative or constructive power of the mind. The act of constructive intellect in grouping knowledge or thought into new, original or rational systems. "Science, Invention and Philosophy have little use for fancy, but the creative, penetrative power of imagination is to them the breath of life, and the condition of all advance and success."
IMMUTABLE—Not capable of change, either by increase or decrease, by development or self evolution; unchangeable; invariable and permanent.
INDUCTION—The scientific method that proceeds by 1, exact operation; 2, correct interpretation; 3, rational explanation; 4, scientific construction. Reasoning from the particular to the general; induction proceeds from a number of collated instances, through some attribute common to them all, to a general principle.
INDIVIDUAL—A complete independent single being; incapable of division without loss of identity.
INEXORABLE—Not to be moved by entreaty; unyielding; unrelenting; implacable; inflexible.
INFINITE—Self-existent and all-inclusive reality; unmeasured, undetermined, unlimited; independent of expression, yet including all expressions, or actualized things; the absolute.
INSIGHT—A perception of the inner nature of a thing.