Y.M. To guess out what is right to give them, and not be unfair to any of them.
O.M. It has quite a noble look—taking so much pains and using up so much valuable time in order to be just and fair to a poor servant to whom you owe nothing, but who needs money and is ill paid.
Y.M. I think, myself, that if there is any ungracious motive back of it it will be hard to find.
O.M. How do you know when you have not paid a servant fairly?
Y.M. Why, he is silent; does not thank you. Sometimes he gives you a look that makes you ashamed. You are too proud to rectify your mistake there, with people looking, but afterward you keep on wishing and wishing you HAD done it. My, the shame and the pain of it! Sometimes you see, by the signs, that you have it JUST RIGHT, and you go away mightily satisfied. Sometimes the man is so effusively thankful that you know you have given him a good deal MORE than was necessary.
O.M. NECESSARY? Necessary for what?
Y.M. To content him.
O.M. How do you feel THEN?
Y.M. Repentant.
O.M. It is my belief that you have NOT been concerning yourself in guessing out his just dues, but only in ciphering out what would CONTENT him. And I think you have a self-deluding reason for that.
Y.M. What was it?
O.M. If you fell short of what he was expecting and wanting, you would get a look which would SHAME YOU BEFORE FOLK. That would give you PAIN. YOU—for you are only working for yourself, not HIM. If you gave him too much you would be ASHAMED OF YOURSELF for it, and that would give YOU pain—another case of thinking of YOURSELF, protecting yourself, SAVING YOURSELF FROM DISCOMFORT. You never think of the servant once—except to guess out how to get HIS APPROVAL. If you get that, you get your OWN approval, and that is the sole and only thing you are after. The Master inside of you is then satisfied, contented, comfortable; there was NO OTHER thing at stake, as a matter of FIRST interest, anywhere in the transaction.
Further Instances
Y.M. Well, to think of it; Self-Sacrifice for others, the grandest thing in man, ruled out! non-existent!
O.M. Are you accusing me of saying that?
Y.M. Why, certainly.
O.M. I haven't said it.
Y.M. What did you say, then?
O.M. That no man has ever sacrificed himself in the common meaning of that phrase—which is, self-sacrifice for another ALONE. Men make daily sacrifices for others, but it is for their own sake FIRST. The act must content their own spirit FIRST. The other beneficiaries come second.
Y.M. And the same with duty for duty's sake?
O.M. Yes. No man performs a duty for mere duty's sake; the act must content his spirit FIRST. He must feel better for DOING the duty than he would for shirking it. Otherwise he will not do it.
Y.M. Take the case of the BERKELEY CASTLE.
O.M. It was a noble duty, greatly performed. Take it to pieces and examine it, if you like.
Y.M. A British troop-ship crowded with soldiers and their wives and children. She struck a rock and began to sink. There was room in the boats for the women and children only. The colonel lined up his regiment on the deck and said "it is our duty to die, that they may be saved." There was no murmur, no protest. The boats carried away the women and children. When the death-moment was come, the colonel and his officers took their several posts, the men stood at shoulder-arms, and so, as on dress-parade, with their flag flying and the drums beating, they went down, a sacrifice to duty for duty's sake. Can you view it as other than that?
O.M. It was something as fine as that, as exalted as that. Could you have remained in those ranks and gone down to your death in that unflinching way?
Y.M. Could I? No, I could not.
O.M. Think. Imagine yourself there, with that watery doom creeping higher and higher around you.
Y.M. I can imagine it. I feel all the horror of it. I could not have endured it, I could not have remained in my place. I know it.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. There is no why about it: I know myself, and I know I couldn't DO it.
O.M. But it would be your DUTY to do it.
Y.M. Yes, I know—but I couldn't.
O.M. It was more than thousand men, yet not one of them flinched. Some of them must have been born with your temperament; if they could do that great duty for duty's SAKE, why not you? Don't you know that you could go out and gather together a thousand clerks and mechanics and put them on that deck and ask them to die for duty's sake, and not two dozen of them would stay in the ranks to the end?
Y.M. Yes, I know that.
O.M. But you TRAIN them, and put them through a campaign or two; then they would be soldiers; soldiers, with a soldier's pride, a soldier's self-respect, a soldier's ideals. They would have to content a SOLDIER'S spirit then, not a clerk's, not a mechanic's. They could not content that spirit by shirking a soldier's duty, could they?
Y.M. I suppose not.
O.M. Then they would do the duty not for the DUTY'S sake, but for their OWN sake—primarily. The DUTY was JUST THE SAME, and just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw recruits, but they wouldn't perform it for that. As clerks and mechanics they had other ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and they satisfied it. They HAD to; it is the law. TRAINING is potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher ideals is worth any man's thought and labor and diligence.
Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to the stake rather than be recreant to it.
O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament, will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content the spirit that is in him—he cannot help it. He could not perform that duty for duty's SAKE, for that would not content his spirit, and the contenting of his spirit must be looked to FIRST. It takes precedence of all other duties.
Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private morals who votes for a thief for public office, on his own party's ticket, and against an honest man on the other ticket.
O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public morals; he has no private ones, where his party's prosperity is at stake. He will always be true to his make and training.
Training
Young Man. You keep using that word—training. By it do you particularly mean—
Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a part of it—but not a large part. I mean ALL the outside influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands ASSOCIATION. It is his human environment which influences his mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion. He creates none of these things for himself. He THINKS he does, but that is because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen Presbyterians?
Y.M. Many.
O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not Congregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not Baptists, and the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the Christian Scientists Mormons—and so on?
Y.M. You may answer your question yourself.
O.M. That list of sects is not a record of STUDIES, searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically) indicates what ASSOCIATION can do. If you know a man's nationality you can come within a split hair of guessing the complexion of his religion: English—Protestant; American —ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American—Roman Catholic; Russian—Greek Catholic; Turk—Mohammedan; and so on. And when you know the man's religious complexion, you know what sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get more light than he wants. In America if you know which party-collar a voter wears, you know what his associations are, and how he came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he reads to get light, and which breed he diligently avoids, and which breed of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political knowledge, and which breed of mass-meetings he doesn't attend, except to refute its doctrines with brickbats. We are always hearing of people who are around SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he had never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who THOUGHT they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment—until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. THAT WAS THE END OF THE SEARCH. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when he found the Truth HE SOUGHT NO FURTHER; but from that day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors. There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers of Truth—have you ever heard of a permanent one? In the very nature of man such a person is impossible. However, to drop back to the text—training: all training is one from or another of OUTSIDE INFLUENCE, and ASSOCIATION is the largest part of it. A man is never anything but what his outside influences have made him. They train him downward or they train him upward—but they TRAIN him; they are at work upon him all the time.
Y.M. Then if he happen by the accidents of life to be evilly placed there is no help for him, according to your notions—he must train downward.
O.M. No help for him? No help for this chameleon? It is a mistake. It is in his chameleonship that his greatest good fortune lies. He has only to change his habitat—his ASSOCIATIONS. But the impulse to do it must come from the OUTSIDE—he cannot originate it himself, with that purpose in view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can furnish him the initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a new idea. The chance remark of a sweetheart, "I hear that you are a coward," may water a seed that shall sprout and bloom and flourish, and ended in producing a surprising fruitage—in the fields of war. The history of man is full of such accidents. The accident of a broken leg brought a profane and ribald soldier under religious influences and furnished him a new ideal. From that accident sprang the Order of the Jesuits, and it has been shaking thrones, changing policies, and doing other tremendous work for two hundred years—and will go on. The chance reading of a book or of a paragraph in a newspaper can start a man on a new track and make him renounce his old associations and seek new ones that are IN SYMPATHY WITH HIS NEW IDEAL: and the result, for that man, can be an entire change of his way of life.
Y.M. Are you hinting at a scheme of procedure?
O.M. Not a new one—an old one. Old as mankind.
Y.M. What is it?
O.M. Merely the laying of traps for people. Traps baited with INITIATORY IMPULSES TOWARD HIGH IDEALS. It is what the tract-distributor does. It is what the missionary does. It is what governments ought to do.
Y.M. Don't they?
O.M. In one way they do, in another they don't. They separate the smallpox patients from the healthy people, but in dealing with crime they put the healthy into the pest-house along with the sick. That is to say, they put the beginners in with the confirmed criminals. This would be well if man were naturally inclined to good, but he isn't, and so ASSOCIATION makes the beginners worse than they were when they went into captivity. It is putting a very severe punishment upon the comparatively innocent at times. They hang a man—which is a trifling punishment; this breaks the hearts of his family—which is a heavy one. They comfortably jail and feed a wife-beater, and leave his innocent wife and family to starve.
Y.M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is equipped with an intuitive perception of good and evil?
O.M. Adam hadn't it.
Y.M. But has man acquired it since?
O.M. No. I think he has no intuitions of any kind. He gets ALL his ideas, all his impressions, from the outside. I keep repeating this, in the hope that I may impress it upon you that you will be interested to observe and examine for yourself and see whether it is true or false.
Y.M. Where did you get your own aggravating notions?
O.M. From the OUTSIDE. I did not invent them. They are gathered from a thousand unknown sources. Mainly UNCONSCIOUSLY gathered.
Y.M. Don't you believe that God could make an inherently honest man?
O.M. Yes, I know He could. I also know that He never did make one.
Y.M. A wiser observer than you has recorded the fact that "an honest man's the noblest work of God."
O.M. He didn't record a fact, he recorded a falsity. It is windy, and sounds well, but it is not true. God makes a man with honest and dishonest POSSIBILITIES in him and stops there. The man's ASSOCIATIONS develop the possibilities—the one set or the other. The result is accordingly an honest man or a dishonest one.
Y.M. And the honest one is not entitled to—
O.M. Praise? No. How often must I tell you that? HE is not the architect of his honesty.
Y.M. Now then, I will ask you where there is any sense in training people to lead virtuous lives. What is gained by it?
O.M. The man himself gets large advantages out of it, and that is the main thing—to HIM. He is not a peril to his neighbors, he is not a damage to them—and so THEY get an advantage out of his virtues. That is the main thing to THEM. It can make this life comparatively comfortable to the parties concerned; the NEGLECT of this training can make this life a constant peril and distress to the parties concerned.
Y.M. You have said that training is everything; that training is the manHIMSELF, for it makes him what he is.
O.M. I said training and ANOTHER thing. Let that other thing pass, for the moment. What were you going to say?
Y.M. We have an old servant. She has been with us twenty-two years. Her service used to be faultless, but now she has become very forgetful. We are all fond of her; we all recognize that she cannot help the infirmity which age has brought her; the rest of the family do not scold her for her remissnesses, but at times I do—I can't seem to control myself. Don't I try? I do try. Now, then, when I was ready to dress, this morning, no clean clothes had been put out. I lost my temper; I lose it easiest and quickest in the early morning. I rang; and immediately began to warn myself not to show temper, and to be careful and speak gently. I safe-guarded myself most carefully. I even chose the very word I would use: "You've forgotten the clean clothes, Jane." When she appeared in the door I opened my mouth to say that phrase—and out of it, moved by an instant surge of passion which I was not expecting and hadn't time to put under control, came the hot rebuke, "You've forgotten them again!" You say a man always does the thing which will best please his Interior Master. Whence came the impulse to make careful preparation to save the girl the humiliation of a rebuke? Did that come from the Master, who is always primarily concerned about HIMSELF?
O.M. Unquestionably. There is no other source for any impulse. SECONDARILY you made preparation to save the girl, but PRIMARILY its object was to save yourself, by contenting the Master.
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to watch your temper and not fly out at the girl?
Y.M. Yes. My mother.
O.M. You love her?
Y.M. Oh, more than that!
O.M. You would always do anything in your power to please her?
Y.M. It is a delight to me to do anything to please her!
O.M. Why? YOU WOULD DO IT FOR PAY, SOLELY—for PROFIT. What profit would you expect and certainly receive from the investment?
Y.M. Personally? None. To please HER is enough.
O.M. It appears, then, that your object, primarily, WASN'T to save the girl a humiliation, but to PLEASE YOUR MOTHER. It also appears that to please your mother gives YOU a strong pleasure. Is not that the profit which you get out of the investment? Isn't that the REAL profits and FIRST profit?
Y.M. Oh, well? Go on.
O.M. In ALL transactions, the Interior Master looks to it that YOU GETTHE FIRST PROFIT. Otherwise there is no transaction.
Y.M. Well, then, if I was so anxious to get that profit and so intent upon it, why did I threw it away by losing my temper?
O.M. In order to get ANOTHER profit which suddenly superseded it in value.
Y.M. Where was it?
O.M. Ambushed behind your born temperament, and waiting for a chance. Your native warm temper suddenly jumped to the front, and FOR THE MOMENT its influence was more powerful than your mother's, and abolished it. In that instance you were eager to flash out a hot rebuke and enjoy it. You did enjoy it, didn't you?
Y.M. For—for a quarter of a second. Yes—I did.
O.M. Very well, it is as I have said: the thing which will give you theMOST pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment or FRACTION of amoment, is the thing you will always do. You must content the Master'sLATEST whim, whatever it may be.
Y.M. But when the tears came into the old servant's eyes I could have cut my hand off for what I had done.
O.M. Right. You had humiliated YOURSELF, you see, you had given yourself PAIN. Nothing is of FIRST importance to a man except results which damage HIM or profit him—all the rest is SECONDARY. Your Master was displeased with you, although you had obeyed him. He required a prompt REPENTANCE; you obeyed again; you HAD to—there is never any escape from his commands. He is a hard master and fickle; he changes his mind in the fraction of a second, but you must be ready to obey, and you will obey, ALWAYS. If he requires repentance, you content him, you will always furnish it. He must be nursed, petted, coddled, and kept contented, let the terms be what they may.
Y.M. Training! Oh, what's the use of it? Didn't I, and didn't my mother try to train me up to where I would no longer fly out at that girl?
O.M. Have you never managed to keep back a scolding?
Y.M. Oh, certainly—many times.
O.M. More times this year than last?
Y.M. Yes, a good many more.
O.M. More times last year than the year before?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. There is a large improvement, then, in the two years?
Y.M. Yes, undoubtedly.
O.M. Then your question is answered. You see there IS use in training.Keep on. Keeping faithfully on. You are doing well.
Y.M. Will my reform reach perfection?
O.M. It will. UP to YOUR limit.
Y.M. My limit? What do you mean by that?
O.M. You remember that you said that I said training was EVERYTHING. I corrected you, and said "training and ANOTHER thing." That other thing is TEMPERAMENT—that is, the disposition you were born with. YOU CAN'T ERADICATE YOUR DISPOSITION NOR ANY RAG OF IT—you can only put a pressure on it and keep it down and quiet. You have a warm temper?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. You will never get rid of it; but by watching it you can keep it down nearly all the time. ITS PRESENCE IS YOUR LIMIT. Your reform will never quite reach perfection, for your temper will beat you now and then, but you come near enough. You have made valuable progress and can make more. There IS use in training. Immense use. Presently you will reach a new stage of development, then your progress will be easier; will proceed on a simpler basis, anyway.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please YOURSELF by pleasing your MOTHER; presently the mere triumphing over your temper will delight your vanity and confer a more delicious pleasure and satisfaction upon you than even the approbation of your MOTHER confers upon you now. You will then labor for yourself directly and at FIRST HAND, not by the roundabout way through your mother. It simplifies the matter, and it also strengthens the impulse.
Y.M. Ah, dear! But I sha'n't ever reach the point where I will spare the girl for HER sake PRIMARILY, not mine?
O.M. Why—yes. In heaven.
Y.M. (AFTER A REFLECTIVE PAUSE) Temperament. Well, I see one must allow for temperament. It is a large factor, sure enough. My mother is thoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I was dressed I went to her room; she was not there; I called, she answered from the bathroom. I heard the water running. I inquired. She answered, without temper, that Jane had forgotten her bath, and she was preparing it herself. I offered to ring, but she said, "No, don't do that; it would only distress her to be confronted with her lapse, and would be a rebuke; she doesn't deserve that—she is not to blame for the tricks her memory serves her." I say—has my mother an Interior Master?—and where was he?
O.M. He was there. There, and looking out for his own peace and pleasure and contentment. The girl's distress would have pained YOUR MOTHER. Otherwise the girl would have been rung up, distress and all. I know women who would have gotten a No. 1 PLEASURE out of ringing Jane up—and so they would infallibly have pushed the button and obeyed the law of their make and training, which are the servants of their Interior Masters. It is quite likely that a part of your mother's forbearance came from training. The GOOD kind of training—whose best and highest function is to see to it that every time it confers a satisfaction upon its pupil a benefit shall fall at second hand upon others.
Y.M. If you were going to condense into an admonition your plan for the general betterment of the race's condition, how would you word it?
Admonition
O.M. Diligently train your ideals UPWARD and STILL UPWARD toward a summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your neighbor and the community.
Y.M. Is that a new gospel?
O.M. No.
Y.M. It has been taught before?
O.M. For ten thousand years.
Y.M. By whom?
O.M. All the great religions—all the great gospels.
Y.M. Then there is nothing new about it?
O.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time. That has not been done before.
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. Haven't I put YOU FIRST, and your neighbor and the communityAFTERWARD?
Y.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true.
O.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked; the difference between frankness and shuffling.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. The others offer your a hundred bribes to be good, thus conceding that the Master inside of you must be conciliated and contented first, and that you will do nothing at FIRST HAND but for his sake; then they turn square around and require you to do good for OTHER'S sake CHIEFLY; and to do your duty for duty's SAKE, chiefly; and to do acts of SELF-SACRIFICE. Thus at the outset we all stand upon the same ground—recognition of the supreme and absolute Monarch that resides in man, and we all grovel before him and appeal to him; then those others dodge and shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and inconsistently and illogically change the form of their appeal and direct its persuasions to man's SECOND-PLACE powers and to powers which have NO EXISTENCE in him, thus advancing them to FIRST place; whereas in my Admonition I stick logically and consistently to the original position: I place the Interior Master's requirements FIRST, and keep them there.
Y.M. If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your scheme and the other schemes aim at and produce the same result—RIGHT LIVING—has yours an advantage over the others?
O.M. One, yes—a large one. It has no concealments, no deceptions. When a man leads a right and valuable life under it he is not deceived as to the REAL chief motive which impels him to it—in those other cases he is.
Y.M. Is that an advantage? Is it an advantage to live a lofty life for a mean reason? In the other cases he lives the lofty life under the IMPRESSION that he is living for a lofty reason. Is not that an advantage?
O.M. Perhaps so. The same advantage he might get out of thinking himself a duke, and living a duke's life and parading in ducal fuss and feathers, when he wasn't a duke at all, and could find it out if he would only examine the herald's records.
Y.M. But anyway, he is obliged to do a duke's part; he puts his hand in his pocket and does his benevolences on as big a scale as he can stand, and that benefits the community.
O.M. He could do that without being a duke.
Y.M. But would he?
O.M. Don't you see where you are arriving?
Y.M. Where?
O.M. At the standpoint of the other schemes: That it is good morals to let an ignorant duke do showy benevolences for his pride's sake, a pretty low motive, and go on doing them unwarned, lest if he were made acquainted with the actual motive which prompted them he might shut up his purse and cease to be good?
Y.M. But isn't it best to leave him in ignorance, as long as he THINKS he is doing good for others' sake?
O.M. Perhaps so. It is the position of the other schemes. They think humbug is good enough morals when the dividend on it is good deeds and handsome conduct.
Y.M. It is my opinion that under your scheme of a man's doing a good deed for his OWN sake first-off, instead of first for the GOOD DEED'S sake, no man would ever do one.
O.M. Have you committed a benevolence lately?
Y.M. Yes. This morning.
O.M. Give the particulars.
Y.M. The cabin of the old negro woman who used to nurse me when I was a child and who saved my life once at the risk of her own, was burned last night, and she came mourning this morning, and pleading for money to build another one.
O.M. You furnished it?
Y.M. Certainly.
O.M. You were glad you had the money?
Y.M. Money? I hadn't. I sold my horse.
O.M. You were glad you had the horse?
Y.M. Of course I was; for if I hadn't had the horse I should have been incapable, and my MOTHER would have captured the chance to set old Sally up.
O.M. You were cordially glad you were not caught out and incapable?
Y.M. Oh, I just was!
O.M. Now, then—
Y.M. Stop where you are! I know your whole catalog of questions, and I could answer every one of them without your wasting the time to ask them; but I will summarize the whole thing in a single remark: I did the charity knowing it was because the act would give ME a splendid pleasure, and because old Sally's moving gratitude and delight would give ME another one; and because the reflection that she would be happy now and out of her trouble would fill ME full of happiness. I did the whole thing with my eyes open and recognizing and realizing that I was looking out for MY share of the profits FIRST. Now then, I have confessed. Go on.
O.M. I haven't anything to offer; you have covered the whole ground. Can you have been any MORE strongly moved to help Sally out of her trouble—could you have done the deed any more eagerly—if you had been under the delusion that you were doing it for HER sake and profit only?
Y.M. No! Nothing in the world could have made the impulse which moved me more powerful, more masterful, more thoroughly irresistible. I played the limit!
O.M. Very well. You begin to suspect—and I claim to KNOW—that when a man is a shade MORE STRONGLY MOVED to do ONE of two things or of two dozen things than he is to do any one of the OTHERS, he will infallibly do that ONE thing, be it good or be it evil; and if it be good, not all the beguilements of all the casuistries can increase the strength of the impulse by a single shade or add a shade to the comfort and contentment he will get out of the act.
Y.M. Then you believe that such tendency toward doing good as is in men's hearts would not be diminished by the removal of the delusion that good deeds are done primarily for the sake of No. 2 instead of for the sake of No. 1?
O.M. That is what I fully believe.
Y.M. Doesn't it somehow seem to take from the dignity of the deed?
O.M. If there is dignity in falsity, it does. It removes that.
Y.M. What is left for the moralists to do?
O.M. Teach unreservedly what he already teaches with one side of his mouth and takes back with the other: Do right FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, and be happy in knowing that your NEIGHBOR will certainly share in the benefits resulting.
Y.M. Repeat your Admonition.
Y.M. One's EVERY act proceeds from EXTERIOR INFLUENCES, you think?
O.M. Yes.
Y.M. If I conclude to rob a person, I am not the ORIGINATOR of the idea, but it comes in from the OUTSIDE? I see him handling money—for instance—and THAT moves me to the crime?
O.M. That, by itself? Oh, certainly not. It is merely the LATEST outside influence of a procession of preparatory influences stretching back over a period of years. No SINGLE outside influence can make a man do a thing which is at war with his training. The most it can do is to start his mind on a new tract and open it to the reception of NEW influences—as in the case of Ignatius Loyola. In time these influences can train him to a point where it will be consonant with his new character to yield to the FINAL influence and do that thing. I will put the case in a form which will make my theory clear to you, I think. Here are two ingots of virgin gold. They shall represent a couple of characters which have been refined and perfected in the virtues by years of diligent right training. Suppose you wanted to break down these strong and well-compacted characters—what influence would you bring to bear upon the ingots?
Y.M. Work it out yourself. Proceed.
O.M. Suppose I turn upon one of them a steam-jet during a long succession of hours. Will there be a result?
Y.M. None that I know of.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. A steam-jet cannot break down such a substance.
O.M. Very well. The steam is an OUTSIDE INFLUENCE, but it is ineffective because the gold TAKES NO INTEREST IN IT. The ingot remains as it was. Suppose we add to the steam some quicksilver in a vaporized condition, and turn the jet upon the ingot, will there be an instantaneous result?
Y.M. No.
O.M. The QUICKSILVER is an outside influence which gold (by its peculiar nature—say TEMPERAMENT, DISPOSITION) CANNOT BE INDIFFERENT TO. It stirs up the interest of the gold, although we do not perceive it; but a SINGLE application of the influence works no damage. Let us continue the application in a steady stream, and call each minute a year. By the end of ten or twenty minutes—ten or twenty years—the little ingot is sodden with quicksilver, its virtues are gone, its character is degraded. At last it is ready to yield to a temptation which it would have taken no notice of, ten or twenty years ago. We will apply that temptation in the form of a pressure of my finger. You note the result?
Y.M. Yes; the ingot has crumbled to sand. I understand, now. It is not the SINGLE outside influence that does the work, but only the LAST one of a long and disintegrating accumulation of them. I see, now, how my SINGLE impulse to rob the man is not the one that makes me do it, but only the LAST one of a preparatory series. You might illustrate with a parable.
A Parable
O.M. I will. There was once a pair of New England boys—twins. They were alike in good dispositions, feckless morals, and personal appearance. They were the models of the Sunday-school. At fifteen George had the opportunity to go as cabin-boy in a whale-ship, and sailed away for the Pacific. Henry remained at home in the village. At eighteen George was a sailor before the mast, and Henry was teacher of the advanced Bible class. At twenty-two George, through fighting-habits and drinking-habits acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of the European and Oriental ports, was a common rough in Hong-Kong, and out of a job; and Henry was superintendent of the Sunday-school. At twenty-six George was a wanderer, a tramp, and Henry was pastor of the village church. Then George came home, and was Henry's guest. One evening a man passed by and turned down the lane, and Henry said, with a pathetic smile, "Without intending me a discomfort, that man is always keeping me reminded of my pinching poverty, for he carries heaps of money about him, and goes by here every evening of his life." That OUTSIDE INFLUENCE—that remark—was enough for George, but IT was not the one that made him ambush the man and rob him, it merely represented the eleven years' accumulation of such influences, and gave birth to the act for which their long gestation had made preparation. It had never entered the head of Henry to rob the man—his ingot had been subjected to clean steam only; but George's had been subjected to vaporized quicksilver.
More About the Machine
Note.—When Mrs. W. asks how can a millionaire give a single dollar to colleges and museums while one human being is destitute of bread, she has answered her question herself. Her feeling for the poor shows that she has a standard of benevolence; there she has conceded the millionaire's privilege of having a standard; since she evidently requires him to adopt her standard, she is by that act requiring herself to adopt his. The human being always looks down when he is examining another person's standard; he never find one that he has to examine by looking up.
The Man-Machine Again
Young Man. You really think man is a mere machine?
Old Man. I do.
Y.M. And that his mind works automatically and is independent of his control—carries on thought on its own hook?
O.M. Yes. It is diligently at work, unceasingly at work, during every waking moment. Have you never tossed about all night, imploring, beseeching, commanding your mind to stop work and let you go to sleep?—you who perhaps imagine that your mind is your servant and must obey your orders, think what you tell it to think, and stop when you tell it to stop. When it chooses to work, there is no way to keep it still for an instant. The brightest man would not be able to supply it with subjects if he had to hunt them up. If it needed the man's help it would wait for him to give it work when he wakes in the morning.
Y.M. Maybe it does.
O.M. No, it begins right away, before the man gets wide enough awake to give it a suggestion. He may go to sleep saying, "The moment I wake I will think upon such and such a subject," but he will fail. His mind will be too quick for him; by the time he has become nearly enough awake to be half conscious, he will find that it is already at work upon another subject. Make the experiment and see.
Y.M. At any rate, he can make it stick to a subject if he wants to.
O.M. Not if it find another that suits it better. As a rule it will listen to neither a dull speaker nor a bright one. It refuses all persuasion. The dull speaker wearies it and sends it far away in idle dreams; the bright speaker throws out stimulating ideas which it goes chasing after and is at once unconscious of him and his talk. You cannot keep your mind from wandering, if it wants to; it is master, not you.
After an Interval of Days
O.M. Now, dreams—but we will examine that later. Meantime, did you try commanding your mind to wait for orders from you, and not do any thinking on its own hook?
Y.M. Yes, I commanded it to stand ready to take orders when I should wake in the morning.
O.M. Did it obey?
Y.M. No. It went to thinking of something of its own initiation, without waiting for me. Also—as you suggested—at night I appointed a theme for it to begin on in the morning, and commanded it to begin on that one and no other.
O.M. Did it obey?
Y.M. No.
O.M. How many times did you try the experiment?
Y.M. Ten.
O.M. How many successes did you score?
Y.M. Not one.
O.M. It is as I have said: the mind is independent of the man. He has no control over it; it does as it pleases. It will take up a subject in spite of him; it will stick to it in spite of him; it will throw it aside in spite of him. It is entirely independent of him.
Y.M. Go on. Illustrate.
O.M. Do you know chess?
Y.M. I learned it a week ago.
O.M. Did your mind go on playing the game all night that first night?
Y.M. Don't mention it!
O.M. It was eagerly, unsatisfiably interested; it rioted in the combinations; you implored it to drop the game and let you get some sleep?
Y.M. Yes. It wouldn't listen; it played right along. It wore me out and I got up haggard and wretched in the morning.
O.M. At some time or other you have been captivated by a ridiculous rhyme-jingle?
Y.M. Indeed, yes!
"I saw Esau kissing Kate, And she saw I saw Esau; I saw Esau, he sawKate, And she saw—"
And so on. My mind went mad with joy over it. It repeated it all day and all night for a week in spite of all I could do to stop it, and it seemed to me that I must surely go crazy.
O.M. And the new popular song?
Y.M. Oh yes! "In the Swee-eet By and By"; etc. Yes, the new popular song with the taking melody sings through one's head day and night, asleep and awake, till one is a wreck. There is no getting the mind to let it alone.
O.M. Yes, asleep as well as awake. The mind is quite independent. It is master. You have nothing to do with it. It is so apart from you that it can conduct its affairs, sing its songs, play its chess, weave its complex and ingeniously constructed dreams, while you sleep. It has no use for your help, no use for your guidance, and never uses either, whether you be asleep or awake. You have imagined that you could originate a thought in your mind, and you have sincerely believed you could do it.
Y.M. Yes, I have had that idea.
O.M. Yet you can't originate a dream-thought for it to work out, and get it accepted?
Y.M. No.
O.M. And you can't dictate its procedure after it has originated a dream-thought for itself?
Y.M. No. No one can do it. Do you think the waking mind and the dream mind are the same machine?
O.M. There is argument for it. We have wild and fantastic day-thoughts?Things that are dream-like?
Y.M. Yes—like Mr. Wells's man who invented a drug that made him invisible; and like the Arabian tales of the Thousand Nights.
O.M. And there are dreams that are rational, simple, consistent, and unfantastic?
Y.M. Yes. I have dreams that are like that. Dreams that are just like real life; dreams in which there are several persons with distinctly differentiated characters—inventions of my mind and yet strangers to me: a vulgar person; a refined one; a wise person; a fool; a cruel person; a kind and compassionate one; a quarrelsome person; a peacemaker; old persons and young; beautiful girls and homely ones. They talk in character, each preserves his own characteristics. There are vivid fights, vivid and biting insults, vivid love-passages; there are tragedies and comedies, there are griefs that go to one's heart, there are sayings and doings that make you laugh: indeed, the whole thing is exactly like real life.
O.M. Your dreaming mind originates the scheme, consistently and artistically develops it, and carries the little drama creditably through—all without help or suggestion from you?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. It is argument that it could do the like awake without help or suggestion from you—and I think it does. It is argument that it is the same old mind in both cases, and never needs your help. I think the mind is purely a machine, a thoroughly independent machine, an automatic machine. Have you tried the other experiment which I suggested to you?
Y.M. Which one?
O.M. The one which was to determine how much influence you have over your mind—if any.
Y.M. Yes, and got more or less entertainment out of it. I did as you ordered: I placed two texts before my eyes—one a dull one and barren of interest, the other one full of interest, inflamed with it, white-hot with it. I commanded my mind to busy itself solely with the dull one.
O.M. Did it obey?
Y.M. Well, no, it didn't. It busied itself with the other one.
O.M. Did you try hard to make it obey?
Y.M. Yes, I did my honest best.
O.M. What was the text which it refused to be interested in or think about?
Y.M. It was this question: If A owes B a dollar and a half, and B owes C two and three-quarter, and C owes A thirty-five cents, and D and A together owe E and B three-sixteenths of—of—I don't remember the rest, now, but anyway it was wholly uninteresting, and I could not force my mind to stick to it even half a minute at a time; it kept flying off to the other text.
O.M. What was the other text?
Y.M. It is no matter about that.
O.M. But what was it?
Y.M. A photograph.
O.M. Your own?
Y.M. No. It was hers.
O.M. You really made an honest good test. Did you make a second trial?
Y.M. Yes. I commanded my mind to interest itself in the morning paper's report of the pork-market, and at the same time I reminded it of an experience of mine of sixteen years ago. It refused to consider the pork and gave its whole blazing interest to that ancient incident.
O.M. What was the incident?
Y.M. An armed desperado slapped my face in the presence of twenty spectators. It makes me wild and murderous every time I think of it.
O.M. Good tests, both; very good tests. Did you try my other suggestion?
Y.M. The one which was to prove to me that if I would leave my mind to its own devices it would find things to think about without any of my help, and thus convince me that it was a machine, an automatic machine, set in motion by exterior influences, and as independent of me as it could be if it were in some one else's skull. Is that the one?
O.M. Yes.
Y.M. I tried it. I was shaving. I had slept well, and my mind was very lively, even gay and frisky. It was reveling in a fantastic and joyful episode of my remote boyhood which had suddenly flashed up in my memory—moved to this by the spectacle of a yellow cat picking its way carefully along the top of the garden wall. The color of this cat brought the bygone cat before me, and I saw her walking along the side-step of the pulpit; saw her walk on to a large sheet of sticky fly-paper and get all her feet involved; saw her struggle and fall down, helpless and dissatisfied, more and more urgent, more and more unreconciled, more and more mutely profane; saw the silent congregation quivering like jelly, and the tears running down their faces. I saw it all. The sight of the tears whisked my mind to a far distant and a sadder scene—in Terra del Fuego—and with Darwin's eyes I saw a naked great savage hurl his little boy against the rocks for a trifling fault; saw the poor mother gather up her dying child and hug it to her breast and weep, uttering no word. Did my mind stop to mourn with that nude black sister of mine? No—it was far away from that scene in an instant, and was busying itself with an ever-recurring and disagreeable dream of mine. In this dream I always find myself, stripped to my shirt, cringing and dodging about in the midst of a great drawing-room throng of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, and wondering how I got there. And so on and so on, picture after picture, incident after incident, a drifting panorama of ever-changing, ever-dissolving views manufactured by my mind without any help from me—why, it would take me two hours to merely name the multitude of things my mind tallied off and photographed in fifteen minutes, let alone describe them to you.
O.M. A man's mind, left free, has no use for his help. But there is one way whereby he can get its help when he desires it.
Y.M. What is that way?
O.M. When your mind is racing along from subject to subject and strikes an inspiring one, open your mouth and begin talking upon that matter—or—take your pen and use that. It will interest your mind and concentrate it, and it will pursue the subject with satisfaction. It will take full charge, and furnish the words itself.
Y.M. But don't I tell it what to say?
O.M. There are certainly occasions when you haven't time. The words leap out before you know what is coming.
Y.M. For instance?
O.M. Well, take a "flash of wit"—repartee. Flash is the right word. It is out instantly. There is no time to arrange the words. There is no thinking, no reflecting. Where there is a wit-mechanism it is automatic in its action and needs no help. Where the wit-mechanism is lacking, no amount of study and reflection can manufacture the product.
Y.M. You really think a man originates nothing, creates nothing.
The Thinking-Process
O.M. I do. Men perceive, and their brain-machines automatically combine the things perceived. That is all.
Y.M. The steam-engine?
O.M. It takes fifty men a hundred years to invent it. One meaning of invent is discover. I use the word in that sense. Little by little they discover and apply the multitude of details that go to make the perfect engine. Watt noticed that confined steam was strong enough to lift the lid of the teapot. He didn't create the idea, he merely discovered the fact; the cat had noticed it a hundred times. From the teapot he evolved the cylinder—from the displaced lid he evolved the piston-rod. To attach something to the piston-rod to be moved by it, was a simple matter—crank and wheel. And so there was a working engine. [1]
One by one, improvements were discovered by men who used their eyes, not their creating powers—for they hadn't any—and now, after a hundred years the patient contributions of fifty or a hundred observers stand compacted in the wonderful machine which drives the ocean liner.
Y.M. A Shakespearean play?
O.M. The process is the same. The first actor was a savage. He reproduced in his theatrical war-dances, scalp-dances, and so on, incidents which he had seen in real life. A more advanced civilization produced more incidents, more episodes; the actor and the story-teller borrowed them. And so the drama grew, little by little, stage by stage. It is made up of the facts of life, not creations. It took centuries to develop the Greek drama. It borrowed from preceding ages; it lent to the ages that came after. Men observe and combine, that is all. So does a rat.
Y.M. How?
O.M. He observes a smell, he infers a cheese, he seeks and finds. The astronomer observes this and that; adds his this and that to the this-and-thats of a hundred predecessors, infers an invisible planet, seeks it and finds it. The rat gets into a trap; gets out with trouble; infers that cheese in traps lacks value, and meddles with that trap no more. The astronomer is very proud of his achievement, the rat is proud of his. Yet both are machines; they have done machine work, they have originated nothing, they have no right to be vain; the whole credit belongs to their Maker. They are entitled to no honors, no praises, no monuments when they die, no remembrance. One is a complex and elaborate machine, the other a simple and limited machine, but they are alike in principle, function, and process, and neither of them works otherwise than automatically, and neither of them may righteously claim a PERSONAL superiority or a personal dignity above the other.
Y.M. In earned personal dignity, then, and in personal merit for what he does, it follows of necessity that he is on the same level as a rat?
O.M. His brother the rat; yes, that is how it seems to me. Neither of them being entitled to any personal merit for what he does, it follows of necessity that neither of them has a right to arrogate to himself (personally created) superiorities over his brother.
Y.M. Are you determined to go on believing in these insanities? Would you go on believing in them in the face of able arguments backed by collated facts and instances?
O.M. I have been a humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker.
Y.M. Very well?
O.M. The humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker is always convertible by such means.
Y.M. I am thankful to God to hear you say this, for now I know that your conversion—
O.M. Wait. You misunderstand. I said I have BEEN a Truth-Seeker.
Y.M. Well?
O.M. I am not that now. Have your forgotten? I told you that there are none but temporary Truth-Seekers; that a permanent one is a human impossibility; that as soon as the Seeker finds what he is thoroughly convinced is the Truth, he seeks no further, but gives the rest of his days to hunting junk to patch it and caulk it and prop it with, and make it weather-proof and keep it from caving in on him. Hence the Presbyterian remains a Presbyterian, the Mohammedan a Mohammedan, the Spiritualist a Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republican a Republican, the Monarchist a Monarchist; and if a humble, earnest, and sincere Seeker after Truth should find it in the proposition that the moon is made of green cheese nothing could ever budge him from that position; for he is nothing but an automatic machine, and must obey the laws of his construction.
Y.M. After so—
O.M. Having found the Truth; perceiving that beyond question man has but one moving impulse—the contenting of his own spirit—and is merely a machine and entitled to no personal merit for anything he does, it is not humanly possible for me to seek further. The rest of my days will be spent in patching and painting and puttying and caulking my priceless possession and in looking the other way when an imploring argument or a damaging fact approaches.
——- 1. The Marquess of Worcester had done all of this more than a century earlier.
Instinct and Thought
Young Man. It is odious. Those drunken theories of yours, advanced a while ago—concerning the rat and all that—strip Man bare of all his dignities, grandeurs, sublimities.
Old Man. He hasn't any to strip—they are shams, stolen clothes. He claims credits which belong solely to his Maker.
Y.M. But you have no right to put him on a level with a rat.
O.M. I don't—morally. That would not be fair to the rat. The rat is well above him, there.
Y.M. Are you joking?
O.M. No, I am not.
Y.M. Then what do you mean?
O.M. That comes under the head of the Moral Sense. It is a large question. Let us finish with what we are about now, before we take it up.
Y.M. Very well. You have seemed to concede that you place Man and the rat on A level. What is it? The intellectual?
O.M. In form—not a degree.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. I think that the rat's mind and the man's mind are the same machine, but of unequal capacities—like yours and Edison's; like the African pygmy's and Homer's; like the Bushman's and Bismarck's.
Y.M. How are you going to make that out, when the lower animals have no mental quality but instinct, while man possesses reason?
O.M. What is instinct?
Y.M. It is merely unthinking and mechanical exercise of inherited habit.
O.M. What originated the habit?
Y.M. The first animal started it, its descendants have inherited it.
O.M. How did the first one come to start it?
Y.M. I don't know; but it didn't THINK it out.
O.M. How do you know it didn't?
Y.M. Well—I have a right to suppose it didn't, anyway.
O.M. I don't believe you have. What is thought?
Y.M. I know what you call it: the mechanical and automatic putting together of impressions received from outside, and drawing an inference from them.
O.M. Very good. Now my idea of the meaningless term "instinct" is, that it is merely PETRIFIED THOUGHT; solidified and made inanimate by habit; thought which was once alive and awake, but it become unconscious—walks in its sleep, so to speak.
Y.M. Illustrate it.
O.M. Take a herd of cows, feeding in a pasture. Their heads are all turned in one direction. They do that instinctively; they gain nothing by it, they have no reason for it, they don't know why they do it. It is an inherited habit which was originally thought—that is to say, observation of an exterior fact, and a valuable inference drawn from that observation and confirmed by experience. The original wild ox noticed that with the wind in his favor he could smell his enemy in time to escape; then he inferred that it was worth while to keep his nose to the wind. That is the process which man calls reasoning. Man's thought-machine works just like the other animals', but it is a better one and more Edisonian. Man, in the ox's place, would go further, reason wider: he would face part of the herd the other way and protect both front and rear.
Y.M. Did you stay the term instinct is meaningless?
O.M. I think it is a bastard word. I think it confuses us; for as a rule it applies itself to habits and impulses which had a far-off origin in thought, and now and then breaks the rule and applies itself to habits which can hardly claim a thought-origin.
Y.M. Give an instance.
O.M. Well, in putting on trousers a man always inserts the same old leg first—never the other one. There is no advantage in that, and no sense in it. All men do it, yet no man thought it out and adopted it of set purpose, I imagine. But it is a habit which is transmitted, no doubt, and will continue to be transmitted.
Y.M. Can you prove that the habit exists?
O.M. You can prove it, if you doubt. If you will take a man to a clothing-store and watch him try on a dozen pairs of trousers, you will see.
Y.M. The cow illustration is not—
O.M. Sufficient to show that a dumb animal's mental machine is just the same as a man's and its reasoning processes the same? I will illustrate further. If you should hand Mr. Edison a box which you caused to fly open by some concealed device he would infer a spring, and would hunt for it and find it. Now an uncle of mine had an old horse who used to get into the closed lot where the corn-crib was and dishonestly take the corn. I got the punishment myself, as it was supposed that I had heedlessly failed to insert the wooden pin which kept the gate closed. These persistent punishments fatigued me; they also caused me to infer the existence of a culprit, somewhere; so I hid myself and watched the gate. Presently the horse came and pulled the pin out with his teeth and went in. Nobody taught him that; he had observed—then thought it out for himself. His process did not differ from Edison's; he put this and that together and drew an inference—and the peg, too; but I made him sweat for it.
Y.M. It has something of the seeming of thought about it. Still it is not very elaborate. Enlarge.
O.M. Suppose Mr. Edison has been enjoying some one's hospitalities. He comes again by and by, and the house is vacant. He infers that his host has moved. A while afterward, in another town, he sees the man enter a house; he infers that that is the new home, and follows to inquire. Here, now, is the experience of a gull, as related by a naturalist. The scene is a Scotch fishing village where the gulls were kindly treated. This particular gull visited a cottage; was fed; came next day and was fed again; came into the house, next time, and ate with the family; kept on doing this almost daily, thereafter. But, once the gull was away on a journey for a few days, and when it returned the house was vacant. Its friends had removed to a village three miles distant. Several months later it saw the head of the family on the street there, followed him home, entered the house without excuse or apology, and became a daily guest again. Gulls do not rank high mentally, but this one had memory and the reasoning faculty, you see, and applied them Edisonially.
Y.M. Yet it was not an Edison and couldn't be developed into one.
O.M. Perhaps not. Could you?
Y.M. That is neither here nor there. Go on.
O.M. If Edison were in trouble and a stranger helped him out of it and next day he got into the same difficulty again, he would infer the wise thing to do in case he knew the stranger's address. Here is a case of a bird and a stranger as related by a naturalist. An Englishman saw a bird flying around about his dog's head, down in the grounds, and uttering cries of distress. He went there to see about it. The dog had a young bird in his mouth—unhurt. The gentleman rescued it and put it on a bush and brought the dog away. Early the next morning the mother bird came for the gentleman, who was sitting on his veranda, and by its maneuvers persuaded him to follow it to a distant part of the grounds—flying a little way in front of him and waiting for him to catch up, and so on; and keeping to the winding path, too, instead of flying the near way across lots. The distance covered was four hundred yards. The same dog was the culprit; he had the young bird again, and once more he had to give it up. Now the mother bird had reasoned it all out: since the stranger had helped her once, she inferred that he would do it again; she knew where to find him, and she went upon her errand with confidence. Her mental processes were what Edison's would have been. She put this and that together—and that is all that thought IS—and out of them built her logical arrangement of inferences. Edison couldn't have done it any better himself.
Y.M. Do you believe that many of the dumb animals can think?
O.M. Yes—the elephant, the monkey, the horse, the dog, the parrot, the macaw, the mocking-bird, and many others. The elephant whose mate fell into a pit, and who dumped dirt and rubbish into the pit till bottom was raised high enough to enable the captive to step out, was equipped with the reasoning quality. I conceive that all animals that can learn things through teaching and drilling have to know how to observe, and put this and that together and draw an inference—the process of thinking. Could you teach an idiot of manuals of arms, and to advance, retreat, and go through complex field maneuvers at the word of command?
Y.M. Not if he were a thorough idiot.
O.M. Well, canary-birds can learn all that; dogs and elephants learn all sorts of wonderful things. They must surely be able to notice, and to put things together, and say to themselves, "I get the idea, now: when I do so and so, as per order, I am praised and fed; when I do differently I am punished." Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
Y.M. Granting, then, that dumb animals are able to think upon a low plane, is there any that can think upon a high one? Is there one that is well up toward man?
O.M. Yes. As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!
Y.M. Oh, come! you are abolishing the intellectual frontier which separates man and beast.
O.M. I beg your pardon. One cannot abolish what does not exist.
Y.M. You are not in earnest, I hope. You cannot mean to seriously say there is no such frontier.
O.M. I do say it seriously. The instances of the horse, the gull, the mother bird, and the elephant show that those creatures put their this's and thats together just as Edison would have done it and drew the same inferences that he would have drawn. Their mental machinery was just like his, also its manner of working. Their equipment was as inferior to the Strasburg clock, but that is the only difference—there is no frontier.
Y.M. It looks exasperatingly true; and is distinctly offensive. It elevates the dumb beasts to—to—
O.M. Let us drop that lying phrase, and call them the UnrevealedCreatures; so far as we can know, there is no such thing as a dumb beast.
Y.M. On what grounds do you make that assertion?
O.M. On quite simple ones. "Dumb" beast suggests an animal that has no thought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating what is in its mind. We know that a hen HAS speech. We cannot understand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her phrases. We know when she is saying, "I have laid an egg"; we know when she is saying to the chicks, "Run here, dears, I've found a worm"; we know what she is saying when she voices a warning: "Quick! hurry! gather yourselves under mamma, there's a hawk coming!" We understand the cat when she stretches herself out, purring with affection and contentment and lifts up a soft voice and says, "Come, kitties, supper's ready"; we understand her when she goes mourning about and says, "Where can they be? They are lost. Won't you help me hunt for them?" and we understand the disreputable Tom when he challenges at midnight from his shed, "You come over here, you product of immoral commerce, and I'll make your fur fly!" We understand a few of a dog's phrases and we learn to understand a few of the remarks and gestures of any bird or other animal that we domesticate and observe. The clearness and exactness of the few of the hen's speeches which we understand is argument that she can communicate to her kind a hundred things which we cannot comprehend—in a word, that she can converse. And this argument is also applicable in the case of others of the great army of the Unrevealed. It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Now as to the ant—