67
“Now see here!” retorted Haynerd, rising and giving expression to his protest by means of emphatic gestures. “I’m getting mixed––badly! You tell me that the existence of things demands a creator, and I admit it, for there can be no effect without a cause. Then you say that the universe is infinite; and I admit that, too, for the science of astronomy finds no limits to space, and no space unoccupied. You say that the unity manifested in the universe proves that there can be but one creator. Moreover, to create an infinite universe there must needs be an omnipotent creator; and there can be but one who is omnipotent. I cordially agree. Further, I can see how that creator must be mind––infinite mind. And I can see why that mind must be absolutely perfect, with no intelligence of evil whatsoever, else would it be a house divided against itself. And such a house must eventually fall. Now I admit that the universe must be the manifestation, the expression, of that infinite creative mind. But––and here’s the sticking point––the universe is both good and evil! Hence, the mind which it manifests is likewise both good and evil––and the whole pretty theory blows up!”
He sat down abruptly, with the air of having given finality to a perplexing question.
All eyes then turned to Carmen, who slowly rose and surveyed the little group.
“It is not surprising,” she said, smiling at the confused Haynerd, “that difficulties arise when you attempt to reach God through human reasoning––spirit through matter. You have taken the unreal, and, through it, have sought to reach back to the real.”
“Well,” interrupted Haynerd testily, “kindly explain the difference.”
“Then, first,” replied Carmen, “let us adopt some common meeting ground, some basis which we can all accept, and from which we can rise. Are you all agreed that, in our every-day life, everything is mental?––every action?––every object?––and that, as the philosopher Mill said, ‘Everything is a feeling of which the mind is conscious’? Let me illustrate my meaning,” she continued, noting Haynerd’s rising protest. “I see this book; I take it up; and drop it upon the table. Have I really seen a book? No; I have been conscious of thoughts which I call a book, nothing more. A real material book did not get into my mind; butthoughtsof a book did. And the activity of such thought resulted in a state of consciousness––for consciousness is mental activity, the activity of thought. Remember that, even according to your great physical scientists, this book is composed of millions of charges of electricity, or electrons,68moving at a tremendously high rate of speed. And yet, regardless of its composition, I am conscious only of my thoughts of the book. It is but my thoughts that I see, after all.”
She paused and waited for the protest which was not voiced.
“Very well,” she said, continuing; “so it is with the sense of touch; I had the thought of touching it, and that thought I saw; I was conscious of it when it became active in my mentality. So with sound; when I let the book drop, I was conscious of my thought of sound. If the book had been dropped in a vacuum I should not have been conscious of a thought of sound––why? Because, as Mr. Hitt has told us, the human mind has made its sense-testimony dependent upon vibrations. And yet, there is a clock ticking up there on the wall. Do you hear it?”
“Yes,” replied Haynerd; “now that you’ve called my attention to it.”
“Ah, yes,” replied the girl. “You hear it when your thought is directed to it. And yet the air was vibrating all the time, and, if hearing is dependent upon the fleshly ear, you should have heard it incessantly when you were not thinking of it, as well as you hear it now when you are thinking of it. Am I not right?”
“Well, perhaps so,” assented Haynerd with some reluctance.
“We hear, see, and feel,” continued the girl, “when our thought is directed to these processes. And the processes are wholly mental––they take place within our mentalities––and it is there, within our minds, that we see, hear, and feelallthings. And it is there, within our minds, that the universe exists for us. It is there that we hold our world, our fleshly bodies, everything that we call material.The universe that we think we see all about us consists of the mental concepts, made up of thought, which we hold within our mentalities.”
Haynerd nodded somewhat dubiously. Carmen proceeded with the exposition of her theme.
“Whence come these material thoughts that are within us? And are they real? Can we control them? And how? They are real to us, at any rate, are they not? And if they are thoughts of pain and suffering and death, they are terribly real to us. But let us see, now that we can reason from the basis of the mental nature of all things. We have agreed that the creative principle is mind, and we call it God. This infinite mind constantly expresses and manifests itself in ideas. Why, that is a fundamental law of mind! You express yourself in your ideas and thoughts, which you try to externalize materially. But the infinite mind expresses itself in an infinite69number and variety of ideas, all, like itself, pure, perfect, eternal, good, without any elements or seeds of decay or discord. And the incessant expression of the creative mind in and through its numberless ideas constitutes the never-ending process of creation.”
“Let me add here,” interrupted Hitt, “that the Bible states that God created the heavens and earth in seven days. But numbers, we must remember, were mystical things to the ancient Hebrews, and were largely used symbolically. The number seven, for example, was used to express wholeness, completeness. So we must remember that its use in Genesis has a much wider meaning than its absurd theological interpretation into seven solar days. As Carmen says, the infinite creative mind can never cease to express itself; creation can never cease; and creation is but the whole, complete revelation or unfoldment of infinite mind’s ideas.”
“And infinite mind,” continued Carmen, “requires infinite time in which to completely express itself. So time ceases to be, and we find that all real things exist now, in an endless present. Now, the ideas of infinite mind range throughout the realm of infinity, but the greatest idea that the creative mind can have is the idea of itself. That idea is the image and likeness of the infinite creative mind. It is the perfect reflection of that mind––its perfect expression. That idea is what the man Jesus always saw back of the human concept of man.That idea is the real man!”
“Well!” exclaimed Haynerd. “That’s quite a different proposition from the mud-men that I do business with daily. What are they? Children of God?”
“If they were real,” said Carmen, “they would have to be children of God. But then they would not be ‘mud-men.’ Now I have just spoken of the real, the spiritual creation. That is the creation mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, where all was created––revealed, unfolded––by God, and He saw that it was perfect, good. ‘In the beginning,’ says the commentator. That is, ‘To begin with––God.’ Everything begins with God in the realm of the real. The creative mind is first. And the creation, or unfoldment, is like its creative principle, eternal and good.”
“But,” persisted Haynerd, “how about the material man?”
“Having created all things spiritually,” continued the girl, “was it necessary that the creative mind should repeat its work, do it over again, and produce the man of dust described in the second chapter of Genesis? Is that second account of the creation an inspiration of truth––or a human comment?”
“Call it what you will,” said the cynical Haynerd; “the70fact remains that the mud-man exists and has to be reckoned with.”
“Both of your premises are wholly incorrect,” returned the girl gently. “He doesnotexist, excepting in human, mortal thought. He is a product of only such thought. He and his material universe are seen and dealt with only in such thought. And such thought is the direct antithesis of God’s thought. And it is therefore unreal. It is the supposition, the lie, the mist that went up and darkened the earth.”
“But––the human man––?”
“Is just what you have said, a hue of a man, a dark hue, the shadowy opposite which seems to counterfeit the real, spiritual man and claim all his attributes. He is not a compound of mind and matter, for we have seen that all things are mental, even matter itself. He is a sort of mentality, a counterfeit of real mind. His body and his universe are in himself. And, like all that is unreal, he is transient, passing, ephemeral, mortal.”
“Yet, God made him!”
“No, for he does not exist, excepting in supposition. Does a supposition really exist? If so, then not even truth can destroy it. But supposition passes out before truth. No, the human mind is the ‘old man’ of Paul. He is to be put off by knowing his nothingness, and by knowing the unreality of his supposed material environment and universe. As he goes out of consciousness, the real man, the idea of God, perfect, harmonious, and eternal, comes in.”
“And there,” said Father Waite impressively, “you have the whole scheme of salvation, as enunciated by the man Jesus.”
“There is no doubt of it,” added Hitt. “And, oh, my friends! how futile, how base, how worse than childish now appear the whole theological fabric of the churches, their foolish man-made dogmas, their insensate beliefs in a fiery hell and a golden heaven. Oh, how belittling now appear their concepts of God––a God who can damn unbaptised infants, who can predestine his children to eternal sorrow, who creates and then curses his handiwork! Do you wonder that sin, sorrow, and death remain among us while such awful beliefs hold sway over the human mind? God help us, and the world!”
Haynerd, who had been sitting quietly for some moments, deep in thought, rose and held out his hands, as if in entreaty. “Don’t––don’t!” he exclaimed. “I can’t hear any more. I want to think it all over. It seems––it seems as if a curtain had been raised suddenly. And what I see beyond is––”
Carmen went swiftly to the man and slipped an arm about71him. “That infinite creative Mind, so misunderstood and misinterpreted by human beings, is back of you,” she whispered. “And it is Love.”
Haynerd turned and grasped her hands. “I believe it,” he murmured. “But had I not seen the proof in you, no amount of reasoning would have convinced me.” And, bowing to the little group, he went out.
“Well?” said Hitt, turning inquiringly to the doctor.
The latter raised his head. “If these things are true,” he made answer slowly, “then I shall have to recast my entire mentality, my whole basis of thinking.”
“It is just what youmustdo, Doctor, if you would work out your salvation,” said Carmen. “Jesus said we must repent if we would be saved. Repentance––the Greekmetanoia––means a complete and radical change of thought.”
“But––do you mean to say that the whole world has been mistaken? That the entire human race has been deceived for ages?”
“Why,” said Hitt, “it was only in our own day, comparatively speaking, that the human race was undeceived in regard to the world being round. And there are thousands of human beings to-day who still believe in witchcraft, and who worship the sun and moon, and whose lives are wholly under the spell of superstition. Human character, a great scientist tells us, has not changed since history began.”
“But we can’t revamp our thought-processes!”
“Then we must go on missing the mark, sinning, suffering, sorrowing, and dying, over and over and over again, until we decide that we can do so,” said Hitt.
The doctor looked at Carmen and met that same smile of unbounded love which she gave without stint to a sin-weary world.
“I––I’ll come again,” he said. “When? To-morrow night?”
“Yes,” said Carmen, rising and coming around to him. “And,” in a whisper, “bring Pat.”
CHAPTER 6
The Social Era had for many years made its weekly appearance every Saturday morning, that its fashionable clientele might appease their jaded appetites on the Sabbath day by nibbling at its spicy pabulum. But, though the Ames reception had fallen on a Saturday night, the following Friday morning found the columns of the Era still awaiting72a report of the notable affair. For Haynerd’s hand seemed paralyzed. Whenever he set his pen to the task, there loomed before him only the scene in the little waiting room, and he could write of nothing else. He found himself still dwelling upon the awful contrast between the slender wisp of a girl and her mountainous opponent, as they had stood before him; and the terrifying thoughts of what was sure to follow in consequence drenched his skin with cold perspiration.
On the desk before him lay the essay which he had asked Carmen to write during the week, as her report of the brilliant event. He had read it through three times, and each time had read into it a new meaning. He dared not run it. Not that it ridiculed or condemned––at least, not openly––but because every one of its crisp comments admitted of an interpretation which revealed the hidden depths of the social system, and its gigantic incarnation, as if under the glare of a powerful searchlight. It was in no sense a muck-raking exposition. Rather, it was an interpretation, and a suggestion. It was, too, a prediction; but not a curse. The girl loved those about whom she wrote. And yet, he who read the essay aright would learn that her love stopped not at the flimsy veil of the flesh, but penetrated until it rested upon the fair spiritual image beyond. And then Haynerd saw that the essay was, in substance, a social clinic, to which all searchers after truth were bidden, that they might learn a great lesson from her skillful dissection of the human mind, and her keen analysis of its constituent thought.
As he sat wrapped in reflection, the early morning mail was brought in. He glanced up, and then started to his feet. The letters spread over his desk like an avalanche of snow; and the puffing mail carrier declared that he had made a special trip with them alone. Haynerd began to tear them open, one after another. Then he called the office boy, and set him at the task. There were more than five hundred of them, and each contained a canceled subscription to the Social Era.
A dark foreboding settled down over Haynerd’s mind. He rose and went to the card-index to consult his subscription list. It was gone! He stood confusedly for a moment, then hastened to the window that looked out upon a fire-escape. Its lock lay broken upon the floor. He turned and rushed to the vault, which, reflecting his own habitual carelessness, was never locked. His ledgers and account books were not there. Then he crept back to his desk and sank into a chair.
The noon mail brought more letters of like nature, until the office boy tallied nearly eight hundred. Then Haynerd, as if rousing from a dream, reached for the telephone and summoned Hitt to his rescue. The Social Era was foundering.73Its mailing list had contained some fifteen hundred names. The subscription price was twelve dollars a year––and never, to his knowledge, had it been paid in advance by his ultra-rich patrons, most of whom were greatly in arrears. Haynerd saw it all vanishing now as quietly as the mist fades before the summer sun.
Within an hour the wondering Hitt was in conference with him, and Haynerd had told the story of the theft, of the Ames bribe, and the encounter following. “But,” he cried, “can Ames kill my entire subscription list, and in a single week?”
“Easily,” replied Hitt, “and in any one of several ways. Apparently he had caused your subscription list and books to be stolen. Your sun has set, Ned. Or, rather, Ames has lifted it bodily from the sky.”
“Then I’ll shoot him! I’ll––! But we’ve got the goods on him! Carmen and I saw him bribe Wales! We’ll expose him!”
Hitt laughed. “Forget all that,” he said, laying a hand on the excited man’s arm. “Remember, that Wales would never dare breathe a word of it; Carmen has no reputation or standing whatsoever now in this city; and Ames would make out a case of blackmail against you so quickly that it would sweep you right into the Tombs. Go easy. And first, let us get the girl herself down here.”
He took the telephone and called up several of the University departments, after first ascertaining that she was not at her home. Then, having located her, he plunged into a study of the situation with the distracted publisher.
“That’s the way of it!” cried Haynerd at length. “Here I waste my evenings in learned philosophical discussions with you people, and meantime, while we’re figuring out that there is no evil, that monster, Ames, stretches out a tentacle and strangles me! Fine practical discussions we’ve been having, ain’t they? I tell you, I’m through with ’em!” He brought his fist down upon the desk with a crash.
“Ned,” said Hitt, “you’re a fool.”
“Sure I am!” shouted Haynerd. “Do I deny it? Here I had a nice, clean business, no work, good pay––and, just because I associated with you and that girl, the whole damn thing goes up the flue! Pays to be good, doesn’t it? Nix!”
“H’m; well, Ned, you’re not only a fool, but a blooming idiot,” replied Hitt calmly.
“Lay it on! Lay it on thick!” roared Haynerd. “And if you run out of epithets, I’ll supply a few! I’m a––”
The door swung open, and Carmen entered, fresh as the sea breeze, and panting with her haste. “Do you know,” she began eagerly, “two men followed me all the way down from74the University! They watched me come in here, and––but, what is wrong with you two?” She stopped and looked inquiringly from one to the other.
“Well,” began Hitt hesitatingly, “we were reflecting––”
“Reflecting? What? Good, or evil?” she demanded.
“We were just holding a wake, that’s all,” muttered Haynerd.
“Then wake up!” she cried, seizing his hand.
Hitt pushed out a chair for the girl, and bade her sit down. Then he briefly related the events which had led to her being summoned. “And now,” he concluded, “the question is, does Wales know that you and Ned saw Ames try to bribe him?”
“Why, of course he knows!” cried Carmen. “His wife told him.”
“And who informed her?”
“I did––last Monday morning, early,” answered the wondering girl.
“Didn’t I tell you?” ejaculated Haynerd, turning upon Hitt and waving his arms about. “What do you––”
“Hold your tongue, Ned!” interrupted Hitt. Then, to Carmen, “Why did you tell her?”
“Why––to save her, and her husband, and babies! I told her because it was right! You know it was right!”
“But, to save them, you have ruined Ned,” pursued Hitt.
The girl turned to Haynerd, who sat doubled up in his chair, the picture of despair. “I haven’t ruined you, Ned.” It was the first time she had used this name in addressing him. “Things never happen, you know. And if you have been pushed out of this business, it is because it isn’t fit for you, and because you’ve been awakened. You are for higher, better things than the publishing of such a magazine as the Social Era. I knew you just couldn’t stay at this work. You have got to go up––”
“Eh!” Haynerd had roused out of his torpor. “Go up? Yes, I’ve gone up, nicely! And I was making ten thousand dollars a year out of it! It was a bully proposition!” he blurted.
The girl smiled. “I wasn’t speaking of money,” she said.
“But I was!” retorted Haynerd. “When I talk, it’s in dollars and cents!”
“And that’s why your talk is mostly nonsense,” put in Hitt. “The girl’s right, I guess. You’ve stagnated here long enough, Ned. There’s no such thing as standing still. Progress is a divine demand. It’s now your move.”
“But––good Lord! what am I to do?” wailed the man.
“You now have a grand opportunity,” said Carmen, taking his hand.
75
“Opportunity!”
“Yes; every trial in this life is an opportunity to prove that there is no evil,” she said. “Listen; you have been trained as a publisher. Very well, the world is waiting for the right kind of publications. Oh, I’ve seen it for a long, long time. The demand is simply tremendous. Now meet it!”
Haynerd looked confusedly from Carmen to Hitt. The latter turned to the girl. “What, exactly, do you mean, Carmen?” he asked.
“Let him publish now a clean magazine, or paper; let him print real news; let him work, not for rich people’s money, but for all people. Why, the press is the greatest educator in the world! But, oh, how it has been abused! Now let him come out boldly and stand for clean journalism. Let him find his own life, his own good, in service for others.”
“But, Carmen,” protested Hitt, “do the people want clean journalism? Could such a paper stand?”
“It could, if it had the right thought back of it,” returned the confident girl.
Haynerd had again lapsed into sulky silence. But Hitt pondered the girl’s words for some moments. She was not the first nor the only one who had voiced such sentiments. He himself had even dared to hold the same thoughts, and to read in them a leading that came not from material ambitions. Then, of a sudden, an idea flamed up in his mind.
“The Express!” he exclaimed.
Carmen waited expectantly. Hitt’s eyes widened with his expanding thought. “Carlson, editor of the Express, wants to sell,” he continued, speaking rapidly.
“It’s a semi-weekly newspaper, printed only for country circulation; has no subscription list,” commented Haynerd, with a cynical shrug of his shoulders.
“Buy it!” exclaimed Carmen. “Buy it! And change it into a daily! Make it a real newspaper!”
Hitt looked into Carmen’s glowing eyes. “How old are you?” he suddenly asked. The abruptness of the strange, apparently irrelevant question startled the girl.
“Why,” she replied slowly, “as old as––as God. And as young.”
“And, as human beings reckon time, eighteen, eh?” continued Hitt.
She nodded, wondering what the question meant. Hitt then turned to Haynerd. “How much money can you scrape together, if you sell this lot of junk?” he asked, sweeping the place with a glance.
“Five or six thousand, all told, including bank account,76bonds, and everything, I suppose,” replied Haynerd mechanically.
“Carlson wants forty thousand for the Express. I’m not a rich man, as wealth is estimated to-day, but––well, oil is still flowing down in Ohio. It isn’t the money––it’s––it’s what’s back of the cash.”
Carmen reached over and laid a hand on his arm. “We can do it,” she whispered.
Hitt hesitated a moment longer, then sprang to his feet. “And we will!” he cried. “I’ve pondered and studied this scheme for a year, but I’ve only to-day seen the right help. That is your tremendous, driving thought,” he said, turning to Carmen. “That thought is a spiritual dynamite, that will blast its way through every material obstacle! Ned,” seizing Haynerd by the shoulder and shaking him out of his chair, “rouse up! Your light has come! Now I’ll ’phone Carlson right away and make an appointment to talk business with him. You’ll stand with me, Carmen?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“And you, Ned?”
Haynerd blinked for a few moments, like an owl in the light. But then, as a comprehension of Hitt’s plan dawned upon his waking thought, he straightened up.
“Buy the Express! Make a real paper of it! A––but Ames?”
“He can’t touch us! The clientele of the Express will not be made up of his puppets! Our paper will be for the people!”
“But––your University work, Hitt?”
“I give my last lecture next week.”
“And you, Carmen?”
“I was only biding my time,” she replied gently. “This is a real call. And my answer is: Here am I.”
Tears began to trickle slowly down Haynerd’s cheeks, as the tension in his nerves slackened. He rose and seized the hands of his two friends. “Hitt,” he said, in a choking voice, “I––I said I was a fool. But that fellow’s dead now. The real man has waked up, and––well, what are you standing there for, you great idiot? Go and call up Carlson!”
Again that evening the little group sat about the table in the dining room of the Beaubien cottage. But only the three most directly concerned, and the Beaubien, knew that the owner of the Express had received that afternoon an offer for the purchase of his newspaper, and that he had been given twenty-four hours in which to accept it. Doctor Morton was again present; and beside him sat his lifelong friend and jousting-mate,77the very Reverend Patterson Moore. Hitt took the floor, and began speaking low and earnestly.
“We must remember,” he said, “in conjunction with what we have deduced regarding the infinite creative mind and its manifestations, that we mortals in our daily mundane existence deal only and always with phenomena, with appearances, with effects, and never with ultimate causes. And so all our material knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only. Of the ultimate essence of things, the human mind knows nothing. All of its knowledge is relative. A phenomenon may be so-and-so with regard to another; but that either is absolute truth we can not affirm. And yet––mark this well––as Spencer says, ‘Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative.’”
“And just what does that mean?” asked Miss Wall.
“It is a primitive statement of what is sometimes called the ‘Theory of suppositional opposites’”, replied Hitt. “It means that to every reality there is the corresponding unreality. For every truth there may be postulated the supposition. We can not, as the great philosopher says, conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without at the same time conceiving a reality of which they are appearances. He further amplifies this by saying that ‘every positive notion––the concept of a thing by what it is––suggests a negative notion––the concept of a thing by what it is not. But, though these mutually suggest each other,the positive alone is real.’ Most momentous language, that! For, interpreted, it means: we must deny the seeming, or that which appears to human sense, in order to see that which is real.”
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Miss Wall, glancing about to note the effect of the speaker’s words on the others.
But Carmen nodded her thorough agreement, and added: “Did not Jesus say that we must deny ourselves? Deny which self? Why, the self that appears to us, the matter-man, the dust-man, the man of the second chapter of Genesis. We must deny his reality, and know that he is nothing but a mental concept, formed out of suppositional thought, out of dust-thought. And that is material thought.”
“Undoubtedly correct,” said Hitt, turning to Carmen. “But, before we consider the astonishing teachings of Jesus, let us sum up the conclusions of philosophy. To begin with, then, there is a First Cause, omnipotent and omnipresent, and of very necessity perfect. That Cause lies back of all the phenomena of life; and, because of its real existence, there arises the suppositional existence of its opposite, its negative, so to78speak, which is unreal. The phenomena of human existence have to doonlywith the suppositional existence of the great First Cause’s opposite. They are a reflection of that supposition. Hence all human knowledge of an external world is but phenomenal, and consists of appearances which have no more real substance than have shadows.We, as mortals, know but the shadowy, phenomenal existence.We do not know reality.Therefore, our knowledge is not real knowledge, but supposition.
“Now,” he went on hastily, for he saw an expression of protest on Reverend Moore’s face, “we are more or less familiar with a phenomenal existence, with appearances, with effects; and our knowledge of these is entirely mental. We see all things as thought. These thoughts, such as feeling, seeing, hearing, and so on, we ignorantly attribute to the five physical senses. This is what Ruskin calls the ‘pathetic fallacy.’ And because we do so, we find ourselves absolutely dependent upon these senses––in belief. Moreover, quoting Spencer again, only the absolutely real is the absolutely persistent, or enduring. Truth, for example. The truth of the multiplication table will endure eternally. It is real. But is it any whit material?”
“No,” admitted Miss Wall, speaking for the others.
“And, as regards material objects which we seem to see and touch,” went on Hitt, “we appear to see solidity and hardness, and we conceive as real objects what are only the mental signs or indications of objects. Remember, matter does not and can not get into the mind. Only thoughts and ideas enter our mentalities. We see ourthoughtsof hardness, solidity, and so on; and these thoughts point to something that is real. Thatsomethingis––what? I repeat:the ideas of the infinite creative Mind. The thoughts of size, shape, hardness, and so on, which we group together and call material chairs, trees, mountains, and other objects, are but ‘relative realities,’ pointing to the absolute reality, infinite mind and its eternal ideas and thoughts.”
He paused again for comments. But all seemed absorbed in his statements. Then he resumed:
“Our concept of matter, which is now proven to be but a mental concept, built up out of false thought, points tomindas the real substance. Our concept of measurable space and distance is the direct opposite of the great truth that infinite mind is ever-present. Our concept of time is the opposite of infinity. It is but human limitation. Age is the opposite of eternity––and the old-age thought brings extinction. So,to every reality there is the corresponding unreality. The opposite of good is evil. If the infinite creative mind is good––and79we saw that by very necessity itmustbe so––then evil becomes an awful unreality, and is real only to the false thought which entertains or holds it. If life is real––and infinite mind must itself be life––then death becomes the opposite unreality. And, as Jesus said, it can be overcome. But were it real,no power,divine or human,could ever overcome or destroy it!”
“Seems to me,” remarked Haynerd dryly, “that our study so far simply goes to show, as Burke puts it, ‘what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue.’”
Hitt smiled. “When the world humiliates itself to the point that it will accept that, my friend,” he said, “then it will become receptive to truth.
“But now let us go a little further,” he went on. “The great Lamarck voiced a mighty fact when he said, ‘Function precedes structure.’ For by that we mean that the egg did not produce the bird, but the bird the egg. The world seems about to pass from the very foolish belief that physical structure is the cause of life, to the great fact that asenseof life produces the physical structure. The former crude belief enslaved man to his body. The latter tends to free him from such slavery.”
“You see, Doctor,” interrupted Carmen, “the brain which you were cutting up the other day did not make poor Yorick’s mind and thought, but his mind made the brain.”
The doctor smiled and shook a warning finger at the girl.
“The body,” resumed Hitt, “is a manifestation of the human mind’s activity. What constitutes the difference between a bird and a steam engine? This, in part: the engine is made by human hands from without; the bird makes itself, that is, its body, from within. So it is with the human body. But the ignorant human mind––ignorantper se––falls a slave to its own creation, the mental concept which it calls its physical body, and which it pampers and pets and loves, until it can cling to it no longer, because the mental concept, not being based on any real principle, is forced to pass away, having nothing but false thought to sustain it.”
“But now,” interposed Haynerd, who was again waxing impatient, “just what is the practical application of all this abstruse reasoning?”
“The very greatest imaginable, my friend,” replied Hitt. “A real thing is real forever. And so matter can not become non-existentunless it is already nothing! The world is beginning to recognize the tremendous fact that from nothing nothing can be made. Very well, since the law of the conservation of energy seems to be established as regards energyin toto, why, we must conclude that there is no such thing asannihilation.80And that means thatthere is no such thing as absolute creation! Whatever is real has always existed. The shadow never was real, and does not exist. And so creation becomes unfolding, or revelation, or development, of what already exists, and has always existed, and always will exist. Therefore, if matter, and all it includes as concomitants, evil, sin, sickness, accident, chance, lack, and death, is based upon unreal, false thought, then it can all be removed, put out of consciousness, by a knowledge of truth and a reversal of our accustomed human thought-processes.”
“And that,” said Carmen, “is salvation. It is based on righteousness, which is right-thinking, thinking true thoughts, and thinking truly.”
“And knowing,” added Hitt, “that evil, including matter, is the suppositional opposite of truth. The doctrine of materialism has been utterly disproved even by the physicists themselves. For physicists have at last agreed that inertia is the great essential property of matter. That is, matter is not a cause, but an effect. It does not operate, but is operated upon. It is not a law-giver, but is subject to the human mind’s so-called laws concerning it. It of itself is utterly without life or intelligence.
“Very good,” he continued. “Now Spencer said that matter was a manifestation of an underlying power or force. Physicists tell us that matter is made of electricity, that it is an electrical phenomenon, and that the ultimate constituent of matter is the electron. The electron is said by some to be made up of superimposed layers of positive and negative electricity, and by others to be made up of only negative charges. I rather prefer the latter view, for if composed of only negative electricity it is more truly a negation. Matter is thenegativeof real substance. It is a sort of negative truth.
“Now electricity is a form of energy. Hence matter is a form of energy also. But our comprehension of it iswholly mental. Energy is mental. The only real energy there is or can be is the energy of the infinite mind we call God. This the human mind copies, or imitates, by reason of what has been called ‘the law of suppositional opposites,’ already dwelt upon at some length. Everything manifests this so-called law. Electricity is both positive and negative. Gravitation is regarded by some physicists as the negative aspect of radiation-pressure, the latter being the pressure supposed to be exerted by all material bodies upon one another. The third law of motion illustrates this so-called law, for it states that action and reaction are equal and opposite. There can be no positive action without a resultant negative one. The truth has its lie. The81divine mind, God, has His opposite in the communal human, or mortal, mind. The latter is manifested by the so-called minds which we call mankind. And from these so-called minds issue matter and material forms and bodies, with their so-called material laws.
“Yes, the material universe is running down. Stupendous fact! The entire human concept is running down. Matter, the human mental concept, is not eternally permanent. Neither, therefore, are its concomitants, sin and discord. Matter disintegrates and passes away––out of human consciousness. The whole material universe––the so-called mortal-mind concept––is hastening to its death!”
“But as yet I think you have not given Mr. Haynerd the practical application which he asks,” suggested Father Waite, as Hitt paused after his long exposition.
“I am now ready for that,” replied Hitt. “We have said that the material is the relative. So all human knowledge is relative. But, that being so, we can go a step further and add that human error is likewise relative. And now––startling fact!––it is absolutely impossible to really know error!”
“Why––!” burst from the incredulous Miss Wall.
“Well?” said Hitt, turning to her. “Can you know that two plus two equals seven?”
“N––no.”
“Let me make this statement of truth: nothing can be known definitely except as it is explained by the principle which governs it. Now what principle governs an error, whether that error be in music, mathematics, or life conduct?”
There was no reply to the question.
“Very well,” continued Hitt. “Evil can not be really known. And that is why God––infinite Mind––can not behold evil. And now, friends, I have come to the conclusion of a long series of deductions. If infinite mind is the cause and creator, that is, the revealer, of all that really exists, its suppositional opposite, its negative, must likewise simulate a creation, or revelation, or unfolding, for this opposite must of very necessity pose as a creative principle. It must simulate all the powers and attributes of the infinite creative mind. If the creative mind gave rise to a spiritual universe and spiritual man, by which it expresses itself, then this suppositional opposite must present its universe and its man, opposite in every particular to the reality.It is this sort of man and this sort of universe that we, as mortals, seem to see all about us, and that we refer to as human beings and the physical universe.And yet, all that we see, feel, hear, smell, or taste is the false, suppositional thought that comes into our so-called mentalities, and by its suppositional82activity there causes what we call consciousness or awareness of things.”
“Then,” said Father Waite, more to enunciate his own thought than to question the deduction, “what the human consciousness holds as knowledge is little more than belief and speculation, with no basis of truth, no underlying principle.”
“Just so. And it brings out the fruits of such beliefs in discord, decay, and final dissolution, called death. For this human consciousness forms its own concept of a fleshly body, and a mind-and-matter man. It makes the laws which govern its body, and it causes its body to obey these false laws. Upon the quality of thought entering this human consciousness depend all the phenomena of earthly life and environment which the mortal experiences. The human consciousness, in other words, is aself-centered mass of erroneous thought, utterly without any basis of real principle, but actively engaged in building up mental images, and forming and maintaining an environment in which it supposes itself to live.This false thought in the human consciousness forms into a false concept of man, and this is the soul-and-body man, the mind-and-matter man, which is called a human being, or a mortal.”
“And there,” commented Carmen, with a dreamy, far-away look, “we have what Padre Josè so long ago spoke of as the ‘externalization of thought.’ It is the same law which Jesus had in mind when he said, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’”
“Yes,” said Hitt. “For we know only what enters our mentalities and becomes active there. And every thought that does so enter, tends at once to become externalized. That is, there is at once the tendency for us to see it visualized in some way, either as material object, or environment, or on our bodies. And it is the very activity of such thought that constitutes the human mentality, as I have already said.”
“And that thought is continually changing,” suggested Father Waite.
“Just so. Its very lack of true principle requires that it should change constantly, in order to simulate as closely as possible the real. That accounts for the fleeting character of the whole human concept of man and the physical universe. The human personality is never fixed, although the elements of human character remain; that is, those elements which are essentially unreal and mortal, such as lust, greed, hatred, and materiality, seem to remain throughout the ages. They will give way only before truth, even as Paul said. But not until truth has been admitted to the human mentality and begins its solvent work there, the work of denying and tearing down83the false thought-concepts and replacing them with true ones.”
“And will truth come through the physical senses?” asked Miss Wall.
“No, decidedly no!” said Hitt. “The physical senses testify of nothing. Their supposed testimony is the material thought which enters the human mentality and becomes active there, resulting in human consciousness of both good and evil. And that thought will have to give way to true thought, before we can begin to put off the ‘old man’ and put on the ‘new.’ Human thoughts, or, as we say, the physical senses, do not and can not testify of absolute truth. They do not know God.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Haynerd, rousing up. “There goes the Church, and original sin, and fallen man!”
“There is no such thing as ‘fallen man,’ my friend,” said Hitt quietly. “The spiritual man, the image and likeness, the reflection, of the infinite creative mind, is perfect as long as its principle remains perfect––and that is eternally. The mortal man never was perfect. He is a product of false, suppositional thought. He is not and never was man. He did not fall, because he has had no perfection to lose.”
Reverend Patterson Moore, who had sat a silent, though not wholly sympathetic listener throughout the discussion, could now no longer withhold his protest. “No wonder,” he abruptly exclaimed, “that there are so few deep convictions to-day concerning the great essentials of Christianity! As I sit here and listen to you belittle God and rend the great truths of His Christ, as announced in His Word, the Bible, I am moved by feelings poignantly sorrowful! The Christ has once been crucified; and will you slay him again?”
“No,” said Carmen, her eyes dilating with surprise, “but we would resurrect him! Don’t you think you have kept him in the tomb long enough? The Christ-principle is intended for use, not for endless burial!”
“I? My dear Miss Carmen, it is I who preach the risen Christ!”
“You preach human theology, Mr. Moore,” returned the girl. “And because of centuries of such preaching the world has steadily sunk from the spiritual to the material, and lip service has taken the place of that genuine spiritual worship which knows no evil, and which, because of that practical knowledge, heals the sick and raises the dead.”
“You insinuate that––?”
“No, I state facts,” said Carmen. “Paul made some mistakes, for he was consumed with zeal. But he stated truth when he said that the second coming of Christ would occur when the ‘old man’ was put off. We have been discussing the84‘old man’ to-night, and showing how he may be put off. Now do you from your pulpit teach your people how that may be done?”
“I teach the vicarious atonement of the Christ, and prepare my flock for the world to come,” replied the minister with some heat.
“But I am interested in the eternal present,” said the girl, “not in a suppositional future. And so was Jesus. The world to come is right here. ‘I am that which is, and which was, and which is to come,’ says the infinite, ever-present mind, God!”
“I see no Christianity whatsoever in your speculative philosophy,” retorted the minister. “If what you say is true, and the world should accept it, all that we have learned in the ages past would be blotted out, and falsehood would be written across philosophy, science, and religion. By wafting evil lightly aside as unreal, you dodge the issue, and extend license to all mankind to indulge it freely. Evil is an awful, a stupendous fact! And it can not be relegated to the realm of shadow, as you are trying to do!”
“Did Jesus regard it as a reality?” she asked. “You know, Duns Scotus said: ‘Since there is no real being outside of God, evil has no substantial existence. Perfection and reality are synonyms, hence absolute imperfection is synonymous with absolute unreality.’ Did Jesus know less than this man? And do you really think he looked upon evil as areality?”
“He most certainly did!”
“Then, if that is true,” said the girl, “I will have to reject him. But come, we are right up to the point of discussing him and his teachings, and that will be the subject of our next meeting. Will you join us, Mr. Moore? It is love, you know, that has drawn us all together. You’ll come?”
“It’s an open forum, Moore,” said the doctor, patting him on the back. “Wisdom isn’t going to die with you. Come and get a new viewpoint.”
“I am quite well satisfied with my present one, Doctor,” replied the minister tartly.
“Well, then, come and correct us when we err. It’s your duty to save us if we’re in danger, you know.”
“He will come,” said Hitt. “And now, Carmen, the piano awaits you. By the way, what did Maitre Rossanni tell you?”
“Oh,” replied the girl lightly, “he begged me to let him train me for Grand Opera.”
“Yes?”
“He said I would make a huge fortune,” she laughed.
“And so you would! Well?”