SECOND MEETING
I spoke of the name of our club, the Seekers. I said that I thought it expressed exactly what we meant to do.
Ruth answered that to her it seemed the only possible, natural name.
Then I read aloud Virginia’s account of the last meeting:
“A great many people think themselves too educated to believe in any of the established religions, and then don’t take the trouble to find out what they really think and what their true religion is. People have a wrong idea of the meaning of the word ‘religious.’ Consequently, as they don’t know what it means, they cannotbeit. Many people who go to church or temple every Sabbath, and sleep, or take note of the different costumes of the congregation during the sermon, consider themselves religious.
“We decided that we all believed in the unity of God. The truth has always been apparent to some, such as Moses and Jesus, and some of the Oriental priests. The two former tried to give the true idea to the people, but failed, as they were too poetical, and the people believed too literally. The latter tried to keep the people in ignorance, as it gave them power, and they therefore told the people what they themselves knew to be untruths.
“We differed somewhat in our idea of God. Some thought he was all good and had no evil. I think he is all good, but I also think that all evil is his, but that every evil has a good motive and a good end.
“No idea, no matter how surprising and new it may seem, is new. It has always been, although it has never been thought. The world is like a great bunch of rosebuds, each perfect as a bud, but not developed. Every beautiful idea, when it is thought, is a petal unfolding and revealingmoreperfect petals beneath. Thus one fine idea brings forth another.
“I think a great many people do not know what they think. If you ask a person belonging to one of the established religions what they believe, I think their answer would be vague. Formerly, these religions were very useful, as they made people love good. Now they prevent people from thinking, and make them dependent. They depend on others to make their beliefs and thoughts, when their brains should be, and probably are, fertile enough to think for themselves.”
I said that was just what I wanted, and I hoped to have one such paper each week.
I said I believed that after we had spoken of God, and decided what we meant, and all agreed, we would not often use the word God, because it was so nearly unspeakable, so vast and holy, that we would take it as a natural background to our thought.
“You know,” I said, “how in the old Jewish temples the name of God was mentioned only once a year.”
“And then only by the priest,” Henry added.
“But if we want to talk of God we shall have to use his name,” said Ruth. The others seemed to agree with her.
“The personal significance always clings to the name of God,” Marian said; “but what other word can one use?”
“Perhaps it would be better,” suggested Henry, “to use some such other word as All-powerful One.”
Virginia said that to her the word God had no personal significance.
Ruth thought we might use the impersonal word “Good.” I answered her that every attribute, even good, was limiting, and God was limitless.
I saw that they did not in the least understand what I meant, that they could not until we went further. So I said:
“I think that after we know what we mean by the word God, you will understand why we shall not want, and not need, to use it.”
Then I asked them what they meant by God.
Virginia said: “God is the whole, good and bad, only what seems bad is really good. Or God is, rather, every feeling, every emotion.”
Henry said God was everything good, but that everythingwasgood, and bad only seemed bad to us.
Alfred said: “I don’t think bad is good, but I think that God must be everything, anyway.”
Marian tried to say that God is the vast unknown—something, which we know because we feel it.
Florence said: “I spoke to brother Arthur about it, and I now think that God is sympathy; that is, sympathy and understanding of our fellow-men; and as we reach that, we get to God.”
The others were surprised and startled by this explanation. I said I knew what Florence meant, but that she had not been able to express it clearly.
Then Ruth said that she agreed with Henry. She called God spirit.
“Yes,” I answered, “if we take spirit to mean everything. For we know nothing except through our senses, our consciousness, our understanding; so that all we know is knowledge of spirit.”
They all agreed to that.
“Now,” I said, “I believe God to be in each of us, to be the self within us, and within all others, and within the universe; to be the knowledge, the light and the understanding. I can explain to you what I mean by reading a passage from the Indian Vedas, which seems to me so true, and so exactly what I want to say, that I could not explain it so well myself.” Then I read the following:
“In the beginning was Self alone. Atman is the Self in all our selves—the Divine Self concealed by his own qualities. This Self they sometimes call the Undeveloped. . . . The generation of Brahma was before all ages, unfolding himself evermore in a beautiful glory; everything which is highest and everything which is deepest belongs to him. Being and not being are unveiled through Brahma. . . . How can any one teach concerning Brahma? He is neither the known nor the unknown. That which cannot be expressed by words, but through which all expression comes, this I know to be Brahma. That which cannot be thought by the mind, but by which all thinking comes, this I know is Brahma. That which cannot be seen by the eye, but by which the eye sees, is Brahma.”
They liked this so well, and said it expressed their feelings so truly, that I offered to copy it for each one of them. Marian said she did not understand what was meant by “concealed by his own qualities.”
I answered: “We know God only because of the universe which we see and feel.”
“Yes,” she said.
“But just that the universe,” I went on, “conceals God, is a mystery as well as a revelation.”
“I don’t quite understand,” said Marian.
“It is like a great light,” I said, “which is so bright that it dazzles you, and you cannot look at it.”
“Like the sun,” said Virginia.
“I think I see what you mean,” Marian answered.
I continued: “Moses spoke of God in that same way, as the vast Self: ‘And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.’
“And so,” I went on, “myself and yourself, the self of every man and the self of the universe, that is God.”
With delightful frankness they said that they liked it better as it was put in “that thing on Brahma.”
“So do I,” I answered. “We know only self. Is it not so?”
“I don’t like the word ‘self,’” said Ruth; “it is too limited. I think only of my little self.”
Marian agreed. Virginia said that to her it seemed the true word, that she felt the whole as a vast self. “But isn’t it more?” she asked. “God is feeling. When I ride in an open trolley, and the wind blows in my face, and the trees blow, and the clouds move in the sky, then the feeling that it gives me I call God.”
“Isn’t it self, within yourself?” I asked.
“Yes, it is,” she answered.
“Now,” I said, “we are little, incomplete, limited creatures, but we need the whole universe to be complete. The whole universe is the rest of self, the rest of myself. That is what I mean by God, and in that sense I am a part of God.”
All the children agreed at once, as if this were the thing they had wanted to hear said. This first definite statement that I made seemed to us all unanswerably true.
Immediately they went on to speak of good and bad; but I stopped them, thus:
“There is one other thing I would like to make clear first, a historic question, but one that leads to the question of good and bad. What did the most illumined and inspired polytheists mean by their many gods?”
Marian answered: “They meant many aspects of the one God.”
“Just so, Marian. But now do you know the inner meaning of Trinity?”
None of them knew, and all seemed particularly interested and anxious to understand. “I never understood,” said Marian, “what was meant by the Holy Ghost.”
I said to them: “I will tell you what it has always meant to me, and to some others beside me, and you can see whether it seems true to you. To me the three are as parts of one. They are the contrast, such as man and God, good and bad, even night and day, and the understanding, the unity that makes these two one.”
This needed much explanation. It was all summed up thus: The three in one—the triangle with three sides, which is still one—are: Myself, the other self, which I love and need for my completion, and the love and understanding which pass between us and make us one. Virginia said that she never thought of herself and the other self, that to her they were one. The idea was very new to them all, and did not at once convince them.
“Now,” I said, “we see, however, that opposites are really one; and so I believe that good and bad are parts of the same thing. I believe that everything called bad is the price of going forward, of progress, that bad things are made by good things. Suppose that the world were in utter darkness, that no light were anywhere, then there would be no darkness, either. But the first flame of light would create the darkness.”
As I developed this idea, the children said very little, only asking me questions, until I had finished. This is how I explained it: We all believe—we seven here—that the good is understanding, love, the complete Divine Self, and everything which leads thereto is good. Then everything bad is that which does not lead thereto; or, rather, that is called bad which has not gone so far as the rest. So that the bad is not an actual state—in this I agree with Ruth—but is a condition of good. All pains are growing pains. Things are bad only because we already have something better. The other day I heard Virginia saying that when reason came into the world, creatures first knew the bad; because they saw that the life they had lived was a bad life. So, you see, everything bad is something which we feel to be behind us, not equal to our best knowledge. Pain and badness are the price of progress, and we would rather go forward and suffer than stand still and be comfortable. We long to go forward to the good, to the vast self of complete understanding. “A criminal,” I said, “may be a man who would have been good if he had lived in savage times among savages, but at present he is bad because we are ahead of him.”
“Then a bad man,” said Henry, “is one who is behind his times, or else ahead of them.”
“Oh, no,” they protested, “not ahead of them!”
“No,” I answered, “but the man ahead of his time, who is better than his time, may appear to be a criminal. You must see that the man who believes in the eternal good, who knows that he is going toward unity and complete love, is in a sense above the human law, and must discover his own laws. He may be a criminal in the eyes of others.”
“Give us an example,” they said.
“Jesus is one example. He was crucified as a criminal.”
“Because,” said Henry, “he broke the Roman law. He refused to worship their images, and he called himself King of the Jews.”
“And they did not know,” I answered, “in what sense he called himself King, so they had to crucify him as a traitor. Can’t you think of some other example? Of course, there were all the heretics of old times.”
Alfred and Henry said that Roosevelt was in a sense an example, because he had been much blamed for exposing the truth and hurting business; but that the hurt was an essential part of progress and good.
Ruth said: “Surely it is better to expose the truth and suffer for it, than to go on in falsehood.”
I gave as another example the Russians, with whom, a short time ago, it was a crime to educate the peasants; and I told how brave men and women had been sent to Siberia for breaking the law in this respect.
“But,” I said, “this is a dangerous subject, and truly, we ought not to have mentioned it until we could probe it to the bottom. For surely in a democratic state one of the essential inner laws is that we shall obey the law which our fellows have made.”
“If a law seems wrong to a man,” said Henry, “he can try to change it, but meantime he must obey it. For instance, a man might believe in free trade, but still he would have no right to smuggle in goods.”
“One ought to obey school-laws, I suppose,” said Marian.
“Surely,” I answered, “for the school is an institution you enter from choice, and if you don’t like the laws you can protest by leaving. But if there were a law unjust to your fellows, you would disobey it. Still, even then, the best way to protest would be by a strike of the students.”
They had a long discussion on the great crime of whispering in school, in which I scarcely joined, as I refuse to be a petty preacher to them. But I tried to explain to them why it was so hard for them to obey these little laws.
“It is,” I said, “because you did not help to make the laws yourselves, that you are tempted to break them out of mere mischief. Still, you would not lie about it, but rather do it openly, because you feel that truth between individuals is an inner law, the first step toward understanding. You know I believe that, even unconsciously, we have all always striven for this unity, this completeness that now we are going to strive for with open eyes.”
“And all bad leads in the same direction, and comes to good,” said Virginia.
“Now I want you to understand that clearly,” I said. “All bad things are bad only because they do not reach up to our idea of the best. But that bad things are turned to good, or used for good is because we use them so; because the desire and the striving for good is so strong within us, that we use them to fulfil that desire. It is not a necessity. It is a matter of choice. If we wish, we can use everything for good. And we often do so, even unconsciously. Everything strives toward that good, which is life itself.”
“Then you believe,” said Marian, “that even every criminal has some good in him?”
“Yes, surely,” I answered, “else he would not be here, alive, at all. Every living being is good; and if he is not so far as we at present, he may go farther than we some day. Surely, we will take him onward with us, else we cannot be complete. You must see that any one who believes the great good to be understanding love and unity, cannot be made whole till every one is made whole with him. He needs all the world.”
“Every one must feel that,” said Marian.
“The other day, Marian,” I went on, “you said: ‘If we can never reach the goal, what is the good of anything?’ Now, I, for one, believe in infinite good; I believe that no matter how far we go, we shall long to go farther, so that what now would seem unimaginably good to us might one day seem bad. Can you imagine stagnant perfection?”
“I think,” said Marian, “that a perfectly good world would be terribly monotonous.”
“That is what I think, too,” I answered. “What we love is the going forward, the achieving, the striving.”
Henry said: “It is like travelling toward the horizon, and we think that is the end. But when we reach it, we see another horizon.”
Ruth asked: “How can we strive for anything, if we don’t expect to reach it? Is not God what we long to reach? Is not God the ideal?”
“Is not God, the real, here, now?” I answered her. “I cannot understand Infinity or Eternity, so I say Infinity is here and Eternity is now, because I am always here and now. So I cannot understand infinite good and unity, but I know that here and now I must strive for it, and that the constant striving, and getting more and ever more, is my greatest joy. Now, Ruth, do you admit that we cannot go forward alone, that all must go together to be complete?”
“Yes.”
“Then the whole is one, and every man and creature is a part of me.”
“If every one believed that,” said Marian, “how different, how much better the world would be! People could not criticize each other.”
“Ithink it would,” I said, “and I am glad you think so, too; for if every one believed that, no one could condemn another, any more than you could condemn your own sore finger. You might say: ‘My finger is sore,’ but you wouldn’t say: ‘My finger is very wicked, and I hate it.’”
“I believe that,” said Marian. “I am convinced mentally, but I don’t feel it. I don’t think that I could live it yet.”
Virginia asked whether she might say for us “Abou ben Adhem,” which expressed our idea of man and God. And she said it for us. We were all silent for a few moments. Then I said: “And the love of even more than man, of all creatures, of all the world.”
Marian admitted that she did not love animals. Ruth said she did. Marian seems distressed by the fact that she cannot be perfect at once. That is what she means when she says she is mentally convinced, but doesn’t feel it yet. Alfred feels the same lack. These ambitious children!
“Now,” I said, “I want you to feel certain and convinced of each thing as we go on. We all agree at present, don’t we?”
“Yes,” they answered.
“I feel as if something must be wrong, because we all agree,” I went on, “and yet I know you are independent thinkers. Are you sure that all bad is a condition of good, even all physical bad, such things as accidents and loss? For instance, railroads are of value—why?”
None knew the true reason but Ruth. She said they brought nations together.
“And the accidents on railroads,” I said, “are the price of that progress, a price we have to pay for perfecting that system. It would be better to avoid all accidents—as I hope we shall do one day—but, meanwhile, we would rather take the risk than not have railroads. No one can be convinced, however, that all bad is a condition of good, until tried.”
“I have been tried,” answered Virginia.
They all thought themselves convinced, except Alfred. He said: “It might be true nine times, but the tenth time it might not be true.”
“Then,” said Henry, “you would believe it were true the tenth time, even though you didn’t understand how.”
“No,” I answered; “he would test it the tenth time. We willknoweach thing.”
Now we re-examined our conviction on all these questions, and went over each point again. We probed the possibilities of atheism, and saw that no one who faced things could be an atheist, that atheism was the result of laziness, fear or vanity. Either a man feared to face the truth, or could not bear to admit how little he knew. Andwe saw that an atheist might be a very good man, only he would build his morality on a philosophy he did not understand or examine. We might be good without any religious convictions, but this conviction, this belief, would give us a reason for goodness, and make us strong in the face of uncertainty, temptation and trial. Henry said things were worth while only when they were hard to do.
“There,” said I, “you have a proof of our instinctive feeling that pain is a necessary part of progress.”
Virginia said she wanted to believe what would make her happy; that she would choose the optimistic faith. I answered her I wanted to believe the truth, happy or unhappy, but I had come to the conclusion at last that the truth was very good. I told them how at their age I had been in great doubt, how I had thought the truth might be very bad.
“Pain is real,” I said, “but we will not fear to face that, or anything bitter, when we know it to be a condition of going onward.”
Virginia said I was shaping her thought for her. I reminded her how she used to be my “little disciple.” All the others, and especially Marian, said that this meeting was far more satisfying than the last; that we had reached something definite. Marian said: “I seem to see already what we will have to say on every subject, but we shall have no end of things to speak of.”
THIRD MEETING
Florence and Henry were delayed and did not arrive until after four. But before that we had already gathered about the table, and found it hard to restrain ourselves from beginning the discussion. I said to the children that I thought we would not speak of immortality to-day, as there was too much that came before. I asked them whether they were anxious to get to it. They were very anxious. Florence said: “It is such an important subject.” Ruth said: “I believe we will all agree on immortality.” I answered her that just there I thought we might disagree most. Marian said she had definite ideas on the subject. I can see that Henry has indefinite and theological ideas.
I then read aloud the little paper Marian had written on our talk of the previous week:
“On Sunday, October 18th, our club, the Seekers, held its second meeting. We first discussed our ideas of God. We reached the conclusion that God is our divine self, that through God we can perceive, but we cannot perceive God. This seems to me a very beautiful idea. I think our discussion on this subject was particularly nice, because we did not try to limit God by any attributes, for he is infinite. We also discussed progress. I understood it much better this week than last. The aim of progress is to reach a clear understanding of our fellow-beings; we hope that, sometime, there will be sympathy and understanding among all men, for we each have a divine self, which will not reach perfection until it is in perfect accord with all the other people’s. We discussed good and evil, and decided that evil is that which we outgrow, and which might once have seemed good, but which now seems bad because we have found something better. Good is the progress that we are making toward our goal of common understanding. Unhappiness and accidents, etc., are incidental to progress, and will occur less and less frequently. I enjoyed this meeting of the club very much.”
We now reviewed all the conclusions we had reached. Then I was glad to have them speak once more of good and bad, and ask many questions. Ruth said she was not sure of being convinced. She said: “I talked it over with mother. It seems to me I sometimes put my thought into your words, and imagine you have said what I mean, when perhaps you haven’t. Please repeat that again, about good and bad.” Ruth is always afraid she may be weakening in her own ideas, and tries not to be convinced. I strove to impress upon her that my idea might include hers.
I said: “You see now that the thought I want to give you is an unanswerable religion, which is not new, but larger than all the old beliefs.”
Marian asked: “Large enough to include them all?”
“Yes, just that. Did you ever think of the old word, holiness, h-o-l-i-n-e-s-s? I know another word that to us would mean holiness, a different holiness.”
“You mean w-h-o-l-e?” said Marian.
“Yes, to be whole and complete.”
Now as we spoke again of good and bad, we came upon the interesting question of disease.
“How can that be explained as a part of progress?” asked Marian.
Virginia, with her usual misconception on this subject, said that disease helped us forward because through it scientists came to know and understand many things about life. Henry, still more off the track, said that disease led to a knowledge of medicine.
“Henry’s idea,” I answered, “we cannot consider, because, of course, the only virtue of medical skill is that it cures disease, and if there were not disease we would not need medical progress. But Virginia’s idea is true in a certain sense. It is quite true that disease impelled people to use the microscope, to discover themselves physically, to learn of the infinitude of minute creatures in the universe; and so it led to a larger knowledge of life, because the infinitely little makes our world just as vast as the infinitely big. But this only shows that we made progress out of disease, as we make progress out of all things, because the will of life, the will to go forward, is within us. It does not show how disease itself can be the result or price of progress. That is a difficult question, but I seem to see it clearly, and I will try to explain it to you. None of you, except perhaps Virginia and Alfred, have a clear idea of evolution, and I would like to spend one meeting in explaining it, because it is so essential. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” they said.
“But I can’t go into this question of disease without explaining something of evolution to you now. I will try to make it clear: Each individual is different. As animals progressed and went forward, those parts which were newest were also more unstable, because they were ready to change more. These parts were most apt to become diseased, or, rather, weakened, because progress might be in any direction, and had to feel its way.” It was difficult for me to explain this to the children, who were so utterly unprepared, and I said much more. Even so, I don’t think Marian and Ruth understood it thoroughly, and I shall have to repeat it when we speak of evolution. I said I did not believe the germs of disease ever entered any part unless that part were weakened or imperfect. I said: “Take as an example the human brain. Suppose that two children were born with brains slightly different from others. One might turn out to be a genius, and the other to be eccentric and even insane, because progress feels its way in all directions. So disease, coming to the new unstable parts, would be the necessary cost of progress.”
Virginia said: “Young and new things are always most delicate. I had a palm with many leaves, and one was new. Now, the palm was left for a day against the window pane, and the young leaf died from the pressure of the glass, which did not at all hurt the old leaves.” This poetical and delightful little figure of speech made me wonder whether Virginia understood just what I meant.
We went over the question of good and bad, to Ruth’s satisfaction. And then I asked Henry, whose understanding of it I doubted, to tell me in what three ways the bad was a part of good and progress. His answer was clear and true:
“There is the bad, which is only bad because we now possess or know something better, the old good we have left behind us. Then there is the bad which is the direct result of progress and growth, such as accidents and disease. Then there is the use of bad which we make, to turn it into good, such as the knowledge we get from it, and, as Virginia said before, the sympathy and love which grow out of misfortune.”
“Now,” I said, “I would like some of you to tell me what you mean by those two words, matter and spirit.”
Henry, Virginia and Ruth were the only ones ready to answer.
Henry said that spirit is the soul. He quoted from a Sunday-school formula: “The spirit of man is in the image of God, and immortal.”
I said that those words did not mean anything definite to me. They might be true, but I did not understand them. Ruth said she did, and it was what she meant; that matter was, like the bad, something to be overcome and left behind.
“I think,” said Virginia, “that matter is the tool of spirit; the body is the servant of the mind.”
They began to argue, but I stopped them, saying: “I will first tell you what I think. Is there any matter without form? Has not all matter form, and is it not, therefore, as it were, something like an idea in the mind?”
Henry wanted to deny this, but thought a moment, and admitted that all matter had some form.
I went on: “I am a spirit, that is, a self; and I know things only in my spirit, because I see, hear, touch them. So I don’t believe in matter, so called, at all. I think that our forms, our bodies, and all forms in the universe are an expression of spirit or self.” I said expression was the means for reaching unity, that creatures could not come together unless they expressed themselves to each other, and that I believed all expression was for this purpose. I said, what is called matter, the material conditions of life, are the result of the action of spirit; our bodies, which seem so solid and material, are constantly changed, are not at all the same as matter, but only in form; we are reborn each day according to the spirit. I said that in this sense matter, so-called, was indeed something we were constantly leaving behind us, that every material condition was the result of a previous state of mind. This is true of all human things, and we cannot help thinking it is true of universal things. We know that fire burns, that planets whirl through space, that water runs, and we cannot help feeling these expressions of force to be the expression of something akin to will and spirit.
Virginia said, then there must be something much more than human sympathy and understanding, which we long to reach. I answered, I believed so, but I had not wanted to suggest it to them.
I said that all our present bodily conditions, the seemingly unalterable conditions called material, were the expression of will and spirit in the past, either of ours or others; that our very existence here, the existence of everything, was the result of will and desire.
Marian said: “I don’t think it is just that we should suffer and be, because of another’s will and spirit.”
Virginia answered: “Itisfair. We are part of the whole.”
“That is so,” said Marian. “Of course.” It was a full and sufficient answer.
I said I believed that disease could be prevented, even if not cured, by thought, because will and desire controlled the body. I said: “We have our own destiny in our hands, we are free to do as we choose with the future, because will shapes everything.” I was delighted to find that the children had never heard the silly discussions about free will, and did not have to have that bugbear driven out. I said: “We are a part of the will of life.”
As another illustration of idea coming before form, I spoke of plants and seeds, how in the seed is the possibility, the idea of an infinity of trees.
Virginia said: “In them spirit seems to be asleep, for it must be there.” She said all things slept sometimes, and while they slept the spirit worked in them.
Ruth was not in the least convinced. Indeed, the thing was not overclear. She said: “I still think matter is something to be overcome, something that binds us. Surely we will sometime be spirits without matter, altogether spiritual.”
I tried to show them that spirit without expression would be unthinkable, that though expression might not be what we call matter, it would still be some expression. I said: “Expression frees us.”
That was puzzling, and needed more explanation.
I asked Henry: “What is the object and aim of life?”
He answered vaguely: “I suppose it is spirit.”
“Now, what do you mean by that?” I asked.
He answered: “I suppose we don’t know what it is until we reach the truth.” Evidently he did not, but all the others did. They all spoke at once to explain to him that the object of life was complete understanding and love.
I said: “That is what expression is to get for us, for we express ourselves in form and thought, so that we may understand and be understood. And that is what I meant by freedom. I meant understanding, love and perfect adjustment. In one sense matter is binding, because we want more freedom. Matter, so called, is the physical condition which our will made in the past, and which we want already to surpass. Suppose that a man wrote a book in which he put all his ideas, and that when he finished the book he was forbidden to write or speak again; his ideas would grow afterward, and as he could not express them, he would think himself limited and bound by the book he had written. So material conditions are binding only because we want still more freedom, though they themselves were freedom at the time of their creation. In that sense, Ruth, you might call the body something which the spirit constantly wants to leave behind, because it is creating new forms for itself.”
Marian said: “It is as if there were a house with many rooms, and we thought we wanted to go only into the first; but each door made us long for the next room, and the next, so that we could never be satisfied.”
“And if one door were locked,” I said, “we would consider ourselves sadly bound, though we had thought we wished to go only so far. Suppose a man made a statue, that statue would be an expression of his spirit. But if the next instant he wanted to change it, to make, say, the lines of the arm more perfect, he could not do so by willing. He would have to make a new statue.”
“But that is different,” said Ruth. “The stuff he works in is still matter.”
I tried to explain how all creation is an inter-change of form, a flowing and influence. I tried to show them how all things whatsoever, even thoughts, are forms, and all form an expression.
Virginia said: “Those who write books, or do any great work, are immortal in that, because of their influence.” I answered her that all of us were immortal in this sense, that each thing had endless influence.
Marian asked the one unanswerable question, and I was delighted. She said: “Why was the Divine Self ever divided? How did we ever happen to need bodies and expression? Why did it not all grow together?”
She saw that contrast was needed for recognition. But why, she wondered, was anything at all? I answered her: “We said the other day that it did not matter whether the search for good were infinite or not. Neither does it concern us to know the unknowable, whether or how the awaking world began. But we do know it is awakening, what is the direction, what is the aim and desire of life. To me no more seems needed. We know how to go forward.”
“That is true,” she said. She spoke of old age and mental decay. She said she did not see why people lost, for no reason, the progress they seemed to have made. I answered her that I did not think they lost it, unless they did not try to keep it; that it is a thing one must work for at each moment.
“But why do they stop trying?” she asked.
“I don’t think they stop,” I said. “I think they never did try, but in youth such people merely had more stimulation from without.”
“Now, my grandfather,” she said, “was an intelligent man, and he is losing his memory.”
“Is he losing the valuable thing? Does he love you less, understand you less? Are you sure the memory he is losing is the thing he still needs?”
She saw what I meant. She was struck by it.
I went on: “One might lose the ability to do mathematics, when one had gained all there was to be got out of mathematics.”
She said: “I think you are right. I understand that.”
Now when Ruth insisted again that matter was something binding, something to be left behind, Alfred said:
“I don’t think it is binding.”
“Neither do I,” said Virginia.
“Neither do I,” said I, “for we can always express ourselves in a new way. The man who has written a book is not dumb afterward.”
The meeting was very short and unsatisfactory. I believe that the children went home disappointed, for I could see that we had not got at anything that the children had not understood. Since then Virginia’s mother told me that Virginia did not enjoy it as much as the other meetings; that it was too deep for her. Florence’s “big brother Arthur” told me that she, too, did not enjoy it as much, and that when he questioned her she seemed to understand clearly only the fact that there was no sharp distinction between mind and matter. Otherwise, as he put it, she “talked woolly.” During the meeting she yawned once.
Well, then, this meeting was a failure. As such, I want to use it. What was the cause? Of course, one of the chief causes was the difficulty of the subject, and yet the unavoidability of it. How could I go on to speak of immortality to children with such absurd notions? I don’t think it could be “skipped.” Of course, I would at first suppose that my method of tackling the subject was at fault. It may be so, but at present I can think of no other method. I think that the real and remediable cause of the difficulty was this: That the children did not have a good enough conception of the philosophy of science, actual knowledge of cosmic facts, to understand my point of view. I should have had the talk on evolution first. To remedy this as much as possible, I am going to have the talk on evolution next. To speak of immortality now would cause still more confusion. I await next Sunday with some uncertainty and doubt. For the next meeting must be good, or the club will be a failure. We must learn by experience, they as well as I. I will go forward with courage, if my little army does not fail me.
If I were giving again the talk on matter and spirit, I would do it differently. I would not say “matter is the expression of spirit,” but “matter is the medium through which spirit expresses itself.” For matter is something, though we know not what, and never know it except as form, which seems to us always an expression of will. But we know that, whatever it be, it passes from one controlling will to another. (Of course, it is too difficult to be discussed in this fashion by boys and girls.)
FOURTH MEETING
After all, the last meeting was not such a failure as I had supposed. I asked Alfred to come earlier, and questioned him before the others arrived. He answered me with precision and common sense. He said: “All matter was once spirit, is the result of spirit.” When I said: “What we call matter is the medium through which spirit expresses itself,” he answered: “Yes, but spirit expresses itself in other ways, too.” “Think a minute,” said I, “does it? Can the spirit express itself through any other medium?” “No,” he said, after thinking a moment, “no, of course not.” “Nor,” said I, “do we at all know matter except through the intellect.” I told him that I wanted to speak to him alone because he was so silent at the club. Then Henry arrived. He said he enjoyed the last meeting very much, and thought he understood it all. The paper he wrote proved that he understood far better than I had supposed:
“To-day we first went over what we had said last week. The question arose as to which class of evil disease belongs. We came to the conclusion that it is the result or price of progress. We also spoke about the idea of a trinity. We had said at the last meeting that God is a divine self within us, and that when we know each other we will know God. Connecting each one of us to the other, there is a feeling of sympathy, a third element. That is to say, there is you, and myself, and, making the third part, that sympathetic understanding which brings us closer together.
“The chief topic to-day was that of Matter and Spirit. At first there was a little difference of opinion, but we finally agreed that in reality everything is spirit, and that which we call matter is only the expression of the spirit. As an example we took the sculptor, who, getting an idea through the mind, expresses this spirit in a statue, which we call matter. We speak of the body as matter, but it is spirit, in as much as it is the medium through which the spirit manifests itself.”
When I told the children I had decided to take up evolution before immortality, because evolution was the problem of creation, they were all satisfied and interested.
Then I read aloud Marian’s little paper:
“On Sunday, October 25th, the Seekers held a regular meeting. We first reviewed our discussion of the last week, and then took up the subject of Matter and Spirit. Our discussion was long, and the conclusion we reached was that matter is an expression of spirit. In the first place, matter is that which has form or qualities. Every material thing is the expression of a thought. If a man makes a table, he does so because he wishes to, because it is his will to do so. If he writes a book, that book is an expression of his thought, but it is what is commonly called matter. Matter is, in short, a result of spirit, is an expression of spirit. Our bodies are the expression of our minds, and the way in which we express ourselves to each other. If our bodies are not perfect, if they are diseased, it is merely that our minds have not advanced far enough to express the perfect body. Our talk this week helped me a great deal. Although we did not cover much ground, we reached a conclusion on one of the most difficult subjects, and I think almost every one was convinced.”
Ruth said she had thought all the week of what I had told them, and that she was sure she agreed with me now. The children’s thoughts seem to develop during the week, as if they shaped afterward, and slowly, all that had been said.
Virginia disagreed with Marian, that the perfect mind would make the perfect body. She said: “People with perfect bodies are often fools. And sickly people are often the most intelligent and fine spirited.”
Marian and Ruth both protested, but could not express themselves. So I said: “That is true. But still I believe the perfect mind would have the perfect body. Our bodies may be imperfect for several reasons: Perhaps we are suffering for the wrong spirit of our ancestors, through heredity. Or, again, the body which may be good enough, and quite perfect, even, with the fool’s mind, might not be strong enough for the active mind. That mind would have to create for itself a more perfect body. So, you see, our bodily imperfections are the price of progress. Our upright position, for instance, which is so great a help to the mind, is a strain on the body, and the cause of many of our ills.”
Ruth said: “I think our bodies will become so much better than they are now, that the best we know now will seem very poor.”
Virginia had written a little paper, which seemed to me at the first reading so vague and uncomprehending, that I did not wish to read it aloud. I was glad I did read it aloud, however, as her explanation and interpretation of herself showed that she understood. This is the paper: