"What good is soap to a negro, and advice to a fool?""Do not make a wicked man thy companion, nor act on the advice of a fool."—Gems from the East.
"What good is soap to a negro, and advice to a fool?"
"Do not make a wicked man thy companion, nor act on the advice of a fool."—Gems from the East.
BY T. B. WILSON.
Thereis a very much deeper meaning than some people suppose, to what Paul said to the Romans, "None liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." In inflicting a wound upon himself, the suicide wounds all there is, and his death shocks every living thing. That is so because of the oneness, the solidarity, the interdependence of all that is. Hence it is that the atom is as necessary to the universe as a world. It is a very old philosophy, but it is a demonstrable cosmological and psychological fact, for we know that man necessarily lives and moves and has his being under the same law of growth and maintenance that supports and sustains every other entity, even from the atom subdivided into a million parts away to the mightiest god. It is just as incumbent upon the bowlder that it fulfill its destiny as it is that man should fulfill his. Hence, it is a violation of the law of being to purposely or unnecessarily retard the unfoldment of one's self or any other thing. The wrong done to the thing hindered reflects back upon the doer in force, in addition to the injury done to that which was wronged.
The divinity which shapes the course of a man's journey through the worlds of existence is his own thoughts and acts, and, furthermore, every thought and act exerts an influence for good or for evil everywhere. It is true, altogether true, that every man is more or less his brother's keeper, and that no one can escape the consequences of his acts and thoughts upon his own life, nor of the influence they exert upon the lives of others. The interdependence of all things and the universality of being is seen in all things. This is a principle of existence which to know the full meaning of, one must know one's self.
Existence as a personality and individuality, with power to reason and understand, is at once the most sublime and most fearful stage of unfoldment. It is sublime when considered as evidence of individual possibilities, and fearful when, in the presence of God in manifestation, the responsibility which the realization of the universality of being and the interdependence of all things imposed upon the individual is felt. The law of being makes a relationship to exist between individuals as a whole which transcends the ties of consanguinity. You may call it universal brotherhood, if you like, but any way, the relationship imposes tasks of toil and burdens of duty upon everyone, and to wilfully make the burden of duty or the task of toil harder for one's self or for another is to defy the power of the universe and invite the wrath of the source and maintainer of being.
But somehow or some way the average man and woman finds in the so-called philosophy of suicide a most bewitching theme for conversation and discussion, and it is just possible that not a few are persuaded to try the realities of it by letting their minds dwell upon the subject too much. That there is a certain fascination in the problem of life and death, no one will deny, but the thoughtful person would not seek its solution in self-destruction. The better a man understands the law of his being the clearer he sees that in ratio to his obedience to the laws of nature is he in harmonious relation with all things, and that when in such harmony, existence in the body is altogether desirable, whether he besick or well, rich or poor.
But what constitutes suicide or self-murder? We are accustomed to call that an act of suicide which hurls one into death at once, when death follows the act instantly. Now, as a matter of fact, we all are almost sure to occupy a suicide's grave. There is a difference between the man who burns out his stomach in twenty seconds with prussic acid and the man who burns out his stomach in twenty years with whisky, but can you tell me just what the difference is? That thought might be carried into the conduct of our life throughout. The natural end of a man's pilgrimage in each incarnation is when the spiritual man has so spiritualized his physical body that the spirit can no longer function in it.
Death, then, is surely the spirit walking out of the body by its own free will, just as we lay aside a garment when it is worn out. All other deaths come of violation of nature's laws, and they are premature. It is because we indirectly, at least, commit what is almost the equivalent of what we are wont to call suicide that, in my opinion, we have to come back so often. It is impossible for disease and death, as we understand and feel them, to lay hold upon one who lives in harmony with nature's laws. So as a matter of fact, practically all deaths are the penalty for wrong living. We come back time and again because we need certain other experiences, but the purpose of experience is to teach us to live right, and the reason why we need new experiences is because we have not hitherto, or are not now, living in harmony with nature's laws. Karma makes us go to school until we have mastered the lesson. It is for us to say how many lives we will devote to it, but every moment we turn away from the lesson we drink down poison which kills.
To seek death by one's own hand is not a new method to overcome the ills that relentlessly chase their victims through briar patch and over flint hill. It is a right that has been claimed by very many in all ages, and some of the world's most distinguished personages committed self-murder to escape impending trouble. The crime—for it is a crime—has been defended by such famous writers as Gibbon, Hume, Von Hartman and Schopenhauer. Strangely enough, as civilization advances and universities multiply, the roll of self-murderers seems to increase. It can not be said, therefore, that the spread of culture and knowledge, of discoveries in the field of science, and the adoption of higher codes of commercial and social ethics, educate or influence the world away from the old-time philosophy that a man's highest right is to quit living by his own hand when he is tired of life. Indeed, it would seem that the wider the range of personal liberty, and the more extended the opportunities for intellectual expansion and experiment, the incentive to self-destruction is intensified.
At a recent meeting of the American Medico-Legal congress it was held by not a few members that not only was suicide justifiable in cases where there appeared to be no other way for one to relieve one's misery, but that a physician would be justifiable in ending the life of his patient under certain circumstances. I think we all will agree that such a sentiment is unworthy of a manly man.
When a man assumes to be a law unto himself he is certain to come in contact with forces which will sweep him out of the current of the river of individual progress into whirls and eddies, which agitate the waters fearfully but do not move onward. He will realize, too, that God, the universe and himself are one stupendous whole—absolutely inseparable—and that when he quits any sphere of existence by his own act in violation of the law of his being he is still a necessary part of the whole, and that in severing the cord of earthly life he not only fails of his purpose, but he himselfwill feel the jar more severely than any other entity in all the worlds of God, and not only so, but he shall continue to live amid distracting discord until he voluntarily readjusts himself to that system of law and harmony from which he essayed unlawfully to break away. Certainly he will find pain and sorrow in returning, but not to return is to be without rest eternally. Nevertheless, all men appoint their time to die by their conduct of life, which in nearly all cases is a form of suicide.
There are those who advocate suicide as a proper means of escape from tiresome environment who deny that any unpleasant consequences could follow, because there is no consciousness after death, but it is incumbent upon them to prove that there is such a state as "death" in the sense they speak of it. It would seem that if there is no consciousness in what is called the state of the dead—if the memory of man is annihilated by what is called death—it should be annihilated by sleep or trance, for they are states in which the body is dead for the time. Of course, the advocate of suicide fortifies his position by denying that there is memory where there is no brain life and action, and that when the brain ceases to be active, memory perishes, but that theory is untenable, because the brain is entirely renewed every seven years or such a matter. A man remembers incidents in his childhood, although meanwhile his brain has changed completely a dozen times. It must be, therefore, that there is something in man which is impervious to the influences which time exerts over the physical body. The "tablets of the memory" continue throughout. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.
The advocate of suicide as the better way to rid one's self of trials and tribulations is necessarily a materialist. He preaches the doctrine of immortality of matter and the mortality of spirit, which is a ridiculous absurdity. But he will discourse learnedly about the milliards of bacilli—separate, distinct, individual, living entities—which float about, live, move and have their being nearly everywhere, but if he were asked to catch a few that they might be seen and handled he would promptly say they were altogether invisible to the naked eye, that they are almost sub-microscopic. He would admit that these invisible creatures have existence under the same law that peoples the forest with trees, the earth with animals, and the channels of commerce with men, but he would not admit that any living thing could have life separate from its visible organism; hence, when the physical organism becomes ill, or is subjected to any other uncomfortable conditions of existence, it is its right to escape by quitting life.
But materialists are too few and far between to bother with; besides, there never was a materialist who did not hope that his philosophy was in error, and that he should continue to live as an individual, retaining memory and affections after what he calls death. Having that hope he is deprived of the right to advocate suicide, because if he is to live after the death of the body he must admit that he will be a substantial, thinking being, for it is impossible to think of substance without form, and of either without ascribing power to it.
But there is a phase of the philosophy of suicide which can be seen only from the occult or metaphysical side of life. It has been said that it is the cowardly and unmanly man who wilfully destroys his own life, but for all that a great deal of mental strength and bravery may be required to become too great a coward to combat even little annoyances. And again, the psychological influences which gradually prepare a man during the long days of a protracted illness to calmly, gladly no doubt, welcome death as a friend come in the hour of need, may come with such force upon the man contemplatingself-slaughter that he is as much nerved to meet death as he whose mental acquiescence came after weeks or months of bodily pain and wasting away. The stoics knew of this occult force which nerves a man to destroy his life, and they called it a "sympathetic friend," but science has never been able to analyze or define it, and hence we can know nothing of it except what we gather from the lesson its effects upon the soul of man teaches. It is not true, though, that the suicide leaps from darkness of despair here into the bright light of peace and joy "over there."
The occult force which nerves a man to murder himself, the would-be suicides should bear in mind, is not spent when the man dies. It is a force which is also an immutable law, albeit the influence of its operation is confined to the spiritual man. If it nerves a man to deal with himself harshly it is because the free will of the man cannot be disputed. Were it to paralyze his mind and cripple his purpose the man would be little more than a human machine subject to the whims or caprice of a force or power higher than he. It is the recognition of his free agency by the eternal cause that makes a man a free moral agent, but the same force that sustains him in the exercise of his rights as a free agent follows him beyond the grave and all through the process of unfoldment if he elects to progress, or through the process of retrogression if he inclines to travel to the left.
In quitting this sphere or plane of existence the suicide by no means escapes duty. The environment from which he fled must be met and overcome, and in trying to escape he only strengthens the opposing forces and weakens his own powers of resistance. Nevertheless, the battle must be fought and the victory must be won if he would be free from the hurtful influences which prompted him to avoid learning the lesson of life, and whatever the environment is, it is to be overcome for the good to him there is in the victory. This is the law of compensation, and it is the law of all laws, for it commands that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
The suicide, therefore, not only fails to escape the ills he flees from—but he intensifies the distress which burdens him. Moreover, no occult or spiritual force ever influenced him to burden himself with the consequences of hateful environment, but it aided in the exercise of his free will. And, again, whatever a man's burden may be it is the harvest of his own sowing. If it be of love and sweet memories it is his by natural right, so also it is his by natural right if it be greed and cowardice. The suicide runs from the presence of trouble to the arms of many troubles, and the occult force that aids him in the exercise of his free will holds him to account for committing self-murder with the same firm hand of justice that it would had he murdered his neighbor instead of himself. There is no escape from the consequences of one's acts. The grave is no hiding place. It is the door rather which opens into a court of justice beyond—into a place where the ethical debits and credits of the individual await him that a balance may be struck. Those things which he planted in the field of life will be there as debits and credits. Nothing will be omitted, be they the fruit of omission or of commission, and that which he owes he must come again into the field of the activities of physical environment and pay to the uttermost farthing. This, too, the law of Karma demands, and this it exacts.
BY GRACE G. BOHN.
"Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world:Tune to whose rise and fall we live and die.Rise with it then! Rejoice that man is hurledFrom change to change unceasingly,His soul's wings never furled."—Robert Browning.
"Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world:Tune to whose rise and fall we live and die.Rise with it then! Rejoice that man is hurledFrom change to change unceasingly,His soul's wings never furled."—Robert Browning.
"Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world:Tune to whose rise and fall we live and die.Rise with it then! Rejoice that man is hurledFrom change to change unceasingly,His soul's wings never furled."—Robert Browning.
"Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world:
Tune to whose rise and fall we live and die.
Rise with it then! Rejoice that man is hurled
From change to change unceasingly,
His soul's wings never furled."
—Robert Browning.
Thedestiny of each soul is reunion with the Absolute from which it emanated. But this reunion may be accomplished only through yielding the claims of the personal self to the greater Self, the Christos which exists within each personality. A single word gives us the key to the process,—brotherhood.
To this goal there is one royal road and many that are long and terrible. But the royal road may be travelled only by those who are immune from temptation because their consciousness is not centred in the self which may be tempted. Understanding the law, they obey it, for only by obedience may the law be transcended and the soul become free. That is a royal road, indeed. But it is only for the few.
The other, cyclic and steep as the pathway that winds to the summit of the Purgatorio mountain, must for ages be travelled by the multitudes; for it is they who cannot as yet answer the questions, "Whence came I? wherefore do I exist, and whither do I go?"
Spirit, when first differentiated from the Absolute, is simple, not complex, undifferentiated, pure and good because it has not become conscious of evil. To gain the experiences by which alone it may expand its consciousness to infinity and become inclusive of all differentiation, it becomes individualized and embodied. And this earth is the scene of the experiences which the spirit needs and which it can gain only by means of an embodiment of personality.
Cycle after cycle, life after life, the soul tests all the conditions of earthly pleasure and pain by its own standard and measure. If that standard be self, alienation will be swift and certain, and slow and terrible will be the return to the divine. If the measure be brotherhood, service, ministry to others, the soul remains one with God and spiritual consciousness is by so much expanded.
Since brotherhood is the ideal, our very institutions, church, state, and particularly the home, exist for no higher purpose than to develop within the soul of humanity a conscious desire to live for others. It is only because the soul manifests itself as two forces, in two sexes, man and woman, that the institution of the home, as we know it, is made possible. We fancy that these dual forces, incomplete and fluctuating, become completed and stable only through marriage. The novelists have threshed over this old straw for many weary years, for the view commonly taken is superficial and untrue.
Marriage, in its deeper aspect, is a means by which the soul prepares itself, through the joys of limited service, for that wider ministry which includes the world. Emerson expresses it better when he says "the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls." Marriage opens the shortest way by which men and women, self-centred and egotistical, may be compelled, against their will if need be, to become conscious of the joy of sacrifice and the beauty of service.
The child, like the childish race, is, in some respects, very much of a savage.He has neither intellectual nor ethical ideas and, as Froebel expresses it, "the first circle of a child's life is physical nature bound by necessity." The baby cares only to be kept physically comfortable, and he proposes to be kept so at the expense of others as far as possible. He is a little egotist. The world is his oyster. Selfishness, if he be not guided, is far more native to him during the earliest period of his life, than altruism. And it is significant that a large proportion of children grow into manhood and womanhood, particularly in these days of ferment and individualism, with the firm belief that, first of all, they must look out for themselves. They do not voluntarily accept the path of brotherhood, but the law, the wise law, forces them, by few or many hard experiences, to finally see the wisdom of choosing it. By refusing to obey the law they place themselves within the sweep of its mighty arm and are struck down.
We are all one; we minister to ourselves only as we minister to others. We must first sacrifice self, else all the rest will not be added unto us and even that which we have will be taken away. But before we are capable of the wider ministry, we must prove ourselves by the narrower service, and nature, with her wise economy, leads us into a field wherein service and sacrifice are inevitable, and its gateway is marriage.
Emerson gives us the key to this mystery when he says: "The man is only half himself; his other half is his expression." The true expression is service, the ideal which leads us to accept it is brotherhood, and to that expression the other sex is only the embodied opportunity. To that expression marriage is the guardian and the gateway only as husband and wife accept all its culture and all its sacrifices, patiently, joyfully, completely. That signifies, ordinarily, that both husband and wife must lose their personal selves in their children, and if, for selfish reasons, they refuse this service, they are missing the culture of this incarnation. If they refuse it for reasons that are unselfish, for the opportunities of a wider ministry, that is, as Kipling would say, "another story." That is the supreme sacrifice.
It is, in most cases, wiser for husband and wife to fill their home with little children for two reasons. In the first place, through the care of children (the care of their minds and souls not less than of their bodies), each forgets self and learns the A B C of that great lesson in ministry which alone will make universal brotherhood possible upon the face of the earth. Because these sacrifices are more inevitable to the mother than to the father, she is likely to learn this lesson more speedily, and perhaps that is one reason why the Ego clothes itself now in one sex and now in another in the course of its earthly experiences. Perhaps it is that we may learn this lesson of sacrifice well that the newly embodied soul inflicts upon the builders of its physical body such agonies, sacrifices, and anxieties, that their souls seem to be torn up by the very roots, only to be planted, when quiet comes again, upon a higher plateau and in an atmosphere less dense. Emerson has said truly, "Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it."
Under existing conditions the lesson of selflessness will have to be learned by most of us through this very differentiation of sex, and we may make as much ado about it as we please. We may learn it through the agony and the terror of a Hetty Sorrel or a Margaret, both of whom were examples of extreme selfishness; we may accept it gracefully, as do the average man and woman, with a very faint comprehension of what it all means; or we may welcome and glorify parenthood as the Madonna glorified it, prophesy of that future time when every child shall be the child of an immaculate conception. "Help nature and work on with her, and nature shall regard thee asone of her creators and make obeisance."[2]
The second reason why the selfish person is delaying his own advancement by refusing to fulfill the duties that he tacitly accepts by marriage is very prosaic. We all like to assure ourselves that we are rays of the Infinite, channels through which alone the God-message may be brought to mankind. That is very inspiring. But it is not so inspiring to reflect that we are also the gateways, self-appointed by the very estate of marriage, through which other souls, more advanced than ourselves perhaps, may come into the physical embodiment which they need for future experience. That is quite another thing, and all the old self which binds our souls rebels. For this means, to a great degree, the sacrifice of our social pleasures, our recreations, time, money, physical ease, perhaps health; it means broken rest, disorderly rooms, the washing of bedaubed little hands, and the kissing of, oh, such dirty little mouths. It means that we have to shut our Æschylus and shelve our Faust and our Homer for a few years at least, and many a father and mother look back with something like longing upon the old days when they lived with these great souls and when their cherished books were not smeared as to bindings and torn as to leaves.
Was it an accident that Froebel called the system of education that he gave to the world "the science of motherhood"? Was it accidental that he should dedicate the deepest and truest philosophy of which I have any conception to the end that the father and the mother, and through them, the child, might become able to look beneath the visible for the invisible which conditions it; beneath the outer phenomena to the spirit which gives it birth; beyond the transitory to the permanent. Such a philosophy makes one very patient with physical duties and sacrifices when they are regarded as only a means to an end that is higher than physical. Such a philosophy makes it somewhat easier to "step out from sunlight into shade to make more room for others."
That is, to me, the ethical side of the now-existing relationship of the sexes about which the reformers are making so much ado. It is these who lament with such vigor the large families of the very poor. Looked at from the standpoint of the eternal, the growing number of childless families among the better classes is a much more serious state of affairs. Large and half-cared for families of children prove nothing more than ignorance on the part of the parents, of both spiritual and physical laws. And the suffering that this ignorance entails will inevitably lead the soul to a higher consciousness. But the other state of affairs is—with exceptions—the result of selfishness; and the more conscious the soul, the greater the alienation resulting from a selfish course of action. Says H. P. B., "The selfish devotee lives to no purpose. The man who does not go through his appointed work in life has lived in vain."
It is very noble to slay the appetites but that may occasionally be only a more subtle phase of selfishness. Besides that, desires that are slain for selfish comfort's sake do not free us from the law. That is why it is such nonsense to seek the solution of this old problem by placing the caprice or whim of the individual man or woman above the law of the universe. As long as men and women are selfish, as long as marriages are made from selfish motives, I bow before the rampant desires that shall force the soul into sacrifices until the self has disappeared. But when the law is obeyed, and when old Karmic debts are paid, woman and man will rise superior to it, the will of the individual become one with the universal will, and the spirit have gained her freedom.
Please do not mistake me. I do notbelieve that marriage is the only circumstance through which the sexes can become self-poised, completed and stable. I do not believe that those who marry should always accept the limited service that little children demand of them. I do not believe that the sacrifices of fatherhood and motherhood are the highest sacrifices. Nothing of the kind. Marriage is simply a means by which the less advanced souls, the feeble, the selfish, may rise out of feebleness into strength, out of self into God. Susan E. Blow, in her "Study of Dante," has defined the Inferno as the soul filled with self, the Purgatorio as the soul emptied of self, and the Paradiso as the soul filled with God. Dante himself, with his divine insight into the nature of sin, places the jealous souls (become so through selfishness extreme) in icebound Cocytus, at the very pit of the Inferno. To most of us marriage is indeed the gateway leading out of an Inferno of selfishness, and it is marriage that places upon our backs the precious burdens which we must carry up the Purgatorio mountain. "The more we climb the less it hurts until we seem to fly."[3]But climb we must until the burdens have all fallen and the self has disappeared. By the light of "the dim star that burns within" the cyclic path must be ascended. But when the top has been reached "its light will suddenly become the infinite light." We shall have entered the Paradiso.
Advanced souls, those who are capable of wider and better service, need not to complete themselves in marriage nor to find their expression in the opportunities it gives them. They are strong enough to find it voluntarily in a cause. They do not marry on the physical plane, but truly wedded are they on the spiritual plane and in that marriage to the needs of the world they find the other half, their expression. They cease their hovering between opposites and are stable.
Such souls were Michael Angelo and Raphael, who found complete expression in art. Socrates needed no wife. He found his expression in loafing on the street-corners and plying his mystic questions. Xantippe was clearly a superfluity and we do not blame her for scolding him when we remember that she had none of his philosophic insight to carry her over the desert of his neglect. Dorothea Dix, Florence Nightingale and hundreds of other souls have found their appropriate expression in ministry to physical suffering. H. P. B., great loving heart, forgot self in a sublime service of the mind and of the spirit. Such souls do not drift nor waver; they need none of the experiences of physical fatherhood or motherhood; they are wedded to the needs of the world, they become spiritual fathers and mothers to its children, they find their expression in brotherhood, they are self-poised, completed, and at rest.
[2]Voice of the Silence.[3]Dante.
[2]Voice of the Silence.
[3]Dante.
"Whoever, not being a sanctified person, pretends to be a Saint, he is indeed the lowest of all men, the thief in all worlds, including that of Brahma.""Like a beautiful flower, full of color, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly."—Gems from the East.
"Whoever, not being a sanctified person, pretends to be a Saint, he is indeed the lowest of all men, the thief in all worlds, including that of Brahma."
"Like a beautiful flower, full of color, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly."—Gems from the East.
BY SOLON.
(Continued.)
Atour next gathering an address was given by Mr. Knowlton on Art as an Educational Factor, with special reference to the Drama. After the formal address a very interesting conversation arose on the subject in which the Professor, Mr. Knowlton, and Dr. Roberts took part, and which I will relate here as far as I am able to remember it. The other members took the part of listeners.
Dr. Roberts.—"I can well understand, Mr. Knowlton, that Art plays an important part in life and should be cultivated, and that no one's nature is complete who lacks appreciation of the artistic and beautiful, but even granting this, I do not agree with you that the training of the artistic faculties should be given so much prominence, but should be secondary to that training which fits a man for work in the world. To put it in another way; for the man of the world, art is all very well for his leisure hours and for his relaxation and enjoyment but can have no place in his active everyday life."
Mr. Knowlton.—"I take an entirely opposite view, Doctor, as you know from what I have said, and I maintain that it is just because we have put Art in a secondary place that our civilization is characterized by so much unrest and skepticism; the finer, inner side of man's nature has been subordinated to the grosser and external. What is the criterion of success in the world to-day? That should be sufficient argument in support of my claim. And the man who has achieved success, acquired wealth, position, fame, has not thereby attained to happiness but in nearly every case is still the victim of the unrest of the age. He may use his wealth in the patronage of art, in collections of paintings and sculpture, in support of Grand Opera and what not, but tell me, do you honestly think that he truly appreciates these?"
Dr. Roberts.—"No, I think not. Indeed, in nine cases out of ten, he affects a patronage of art, has his private picture gallery and a box at the opera because it is the fashion. No doubt by doing so he is useful in a way to the Art world, but I must confess that if I wanted a true appreciation of a work of Art, I would not go to such a one."
Mr. Knowlton.—"No, the enthusiasm and the true love of art which is the great incentive in making all life beautiful and harmonious would be lacking. Well, what is the reason of this? I should say it is because Art was made entirely subordinate if not almost neglected in his education, and because it has held a subordinate place throughout his life."
The Professor.—"I do not think we can rightly say what position Art should occupy in education and life unless we can first determine what is truly man's work in the world and what is the object of life."
Dr. Roberts.—"That is just the position I take. Life is a serious matter and a man cannot afford to spend his time and energy on what after all is more a matter of the imagination than anything else. Although I certainly think the æsthetic faculties should not be neglected but that they should receive a certain amount of training; yet, at the same time, except in the case of those who follow art as a profession, they play very little part in a man's life work. In fact, I have known of more than onecase where æsthetic sensitiveness has positively unfitted men for the keen competition of life. After all, the beautiful must give place to the useful, and, for my part, I say, give me the cold facts of science and I will make life successful, whereas the man whose artistic faculties have been trained as Mr. Knowlton says they should be, would have his life made miserable by the discords and inharmonies that he must inevitably meet. But put science and the appreciation of facts as a basis, then a little æsthetic training is all very well as an embellishment."
The Professor.—"Doctor, I fear you have completely backslided to your old materialistic position which you formerly used to hold."
Dr. Roberts.—"If I have I certainly think I have reason and fact on my side this time. Let us get to the bottom of this question. Mr. Knowlton proposes to make education of the æsthetic and artistic faculties of the first importance, but what would be the effect among the masses of the people? I fully agree with providing high class entertainments for the masses—picture-galleries, good music, etc. But to give an education such as suggested would but make them more discontented with their lot and increase their unhappiness. What they need is plain scientific teaching and trade schools where they can be trained to become more useful members of society and more competent to earn a livelihood, but not music or art save as a recreation and which I think ought to be provided for them in the shape of public concerts and art galleries by the cities. With the exception of a little singing and drawing when at school to enable them to appreciate this recreation when they grow up, it would be waste of time for them to develop an appreciation of the artistic. Their lot is too hard and all their energies are needed for the stern realities of life."
The Professor.—"That is all very well, and very well put from your standpoint in regard to man's work in the world, but possibly there is another standpoint from which the matter may be viewed."
Mr. Knowlton.—"And perhaps the very discontent which you fear, Doctor, would be just what is needed to lift the masses from their present almost hopeless condition. The discontent from which they suffer now will never cease through mere material means or scientific education, or the making and enforcing of new laws."
The Professor.—"They don't know the cause of their discontent. They think that if they could have money and material comforts they would be happy, but we know very well that these things do not bring happiness. It is the insanity of the age, this pursuit of the phantom of material prosperity, it is this that breeds all the selfishness, all the greed and lust of possession. By regarding physical life as all important, humanity has got off the track, has lost the way that leads to happiness. Material happiness, physical existence, as an end, is a veritable bottomless pit—the more it is sacrificed to, the more insatiable it becomes, the more it demands. The physical life and physical needs must not be neglected, but so long as these are regarded as an end and their gratification as thesummum bonum, just so long will ever new needs arise, new forms of poverty, new distress."
Dr. Roberts.—"Professor, you startle me! I hardly know what to say. I cannot conceive how social reform can take place on any other lines than the material."
The Professor.—"It certainly requires courage, it requires first of all philosophy as a basis, to deliberately turn around and put physical existence and material comfort in a secondary place while aiming to develop man's inner faculties. Yet I maintain that this is the only way to bring hope and happiness to humanity. It will, as you say,make them discontented with their lot, but this will be but temporary. It will open for them a door to a higher life which alone through its reaction on the collective mind of humanity will make possible and bring about that active brotherliness which will ultimately remove poverty and distress wherever found."
Mr. Knowlton.—"Isn't it a law of Nature that the problems of one plane can ultimately only be solved by rising to the next higher plane? And it seems to me that this is one of Nature's methods in evolution, to create discontent with the lower by awakening that which is higher, thus creating a craving for the higher and a consequent output of energy to attain it."
The Professor.—"And, it should be added, ultimately making the lower of greater service and a more useful instrument."
Dr. Roberts.—"Granting all this for the sake of argument, how will you proceed to bring it about, for as I have said, this artistic appreciation is more a matter of the imagination than anything else and applies to a realm of which there is, so far as I know, no scientific knowledge and concerning which, consequently, there will be as many opinions and methods of procedure as there are teachers? Look for instance, at the many methods of voice training and all the schools of Art. Where is there any recognized starting point?"
The Professor.—"These are all very pertinent questions, Doctor. But before discussing them let me refer to your remark about imagination. Isn't it worth while to cultivate the imagination? Where would have been all the great discoveries in Science had not our scientific men used their imaginations? The pity is that there has been no training of this faculty, it is almost aterra incognita. But to come to your questions proper. How shall we proceed to awaken and train the love of the beautiful that it may work this miracle of regenerating the human race, for such I believe it will accomplish."
Dr. Roberts.—"One moment, Professor, let me interrupt you here. A little time ago we spoke of the lack of true appreciation of art among many of the so-called patrons of art, but surely that must to some extent be passing away, for nearly all the wealthy and even those of moderate means provide that their children shall have some education in art or music. Even in the public schools an important feature is made of drawing and class singing. Surely all this ought to bring about what you desire if your theory is correct, but for my part I cannot see that it will cause any appreciable change, or in any great degree affect the condition of the masses. I simply wanted to say this before you go further, in order that we might not overlook what is already being done and because I think this supports my position that art and music are all very well for recreation and pleasure but that the main thing to help the people is along what I call practical, material and scientific lines. Only in this way can they be fitted for their work in the world."
Mr. Knowlton.—"You have stated your position very clearly, Doctor, and I now see there were many points I did not cover in my address though some of your objections I certainly did anticipate. However, in the first place it comes down to this. What answer is to be given to the question which the Professor asked and which you have again raised? What is a man's work in the world? What is man? What is his nature? In what does education consist? We have often discussed these questions, Doctor, so now we needn't go into them at any length, for you know very well my position in regard to them, but they come up in a slightly different aspect in relation to the subject in hand. Let us for the moment, then, grant the existence of the inner man, the realman, the man of high imaginations, high feelings, with keen appreciation of harmony and beauty, thatsomethingwithin us which prompts to a deed of self-sacrifice, which feels the joy of helping another and relieving distress. The outer man lives on material food, but for health needs also pure air and sunshine—all these are necessary to animal existence. But the inner man needs something more. There are other states of feeling besides that of physical well-being. There are other powers besides the physical or even the mental. It is no mere effect of the imagination that beautiful music or harmony of form and color awaken in response certain harmonies in the soul and it is just in this way that true art may be made a vital educative factor."
The Professor.—"A man's true work in the world is the soul's work, and true education is that which enables the soul to fulfil its destiny and make manifest its own nature. True education is therefore that which will draw out the soul's own powers. If this were done the rest of our life would all fall into its proper place."
Dr. Roberts.—"But as I have said, even granting that, it is all vague. Where and how will you begin? Have you any science of the soul's powers and how to awaken them? What more would you have than is already being done in the way of art education?"
The Professor.—"It is just because there is a science of the soul's powers that more should be done, and lovers of art have sought and striven for this for centuries. But the time had not come. It has come now and this renaissance of the soul's powers is already heralded by the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity."
Dr. Roberts.—"What! do we have to go to the ancients for this? I acknowledge all the culture and art of the Greeks, but I am not one of those who puts Greek civilization above ours."
The Professor.—"It is not a question of giving the palm to either ancient or modern civilization. Our civilization marks one stage of development but in it we have lost something that the ancients had. There is something lacking from our lives. We have developed our physical senses and physical and mental powers to a marvellous degree but there are not that harmony and serenity in our lives which alone can give true happiness. The key to these was in the Mysteries whereby man was brought face to face with the essences of things and his own inner nature."
Dr. Roberts.—"How can these Mysteries be revived—so little is known of them and you yourself speak of them as lost."
The Professor.—"Lost only to the world at large, but they have never been wholly lost. There have always been some in the world to whom has been entrusted the sacred wisdom and through whom it has been handed down from age to age."
Here some of the members began to make a move towards departure and as it was quite late it was decided to resume the discussion at the next meeting when it was expected Madam Purple would be present.
"A chariot cannot go on one wheel alone; so destiny fails unless men's acts coöperate."—Gems from the East.
"A chariot cannot go on one wheel alone; so destiny fails unless men's acts coöperate."—Gems from the East.
BY ADHIRATHA.
Inthe "Key to Theosophy" of H. P. B. there are some allusions to the omniscience of the real man within everybody. Not grasping the meaning, I once had a conversation with Madame Blavatsky on the subject, and I must confess that at the time I was not any wiser for it. I thought what a good thing it would be if instead of passing hours and hours on the solution of a problem, one might simply ask the real man, who knowing all, would tell you at once all about it. I must confess that I had some doubt about the real man knowing all, and I asked Madame Blavatsky to explain. I am sure that she tried to awake my understanding, but at that time it was all a beginning, and young Theosophists felt then (as they do sometimes even now) proud, when they knew the Sanskrit names of the seven principles and a few more strange sounding words.
I thought: Omniscience is knowing all, which of course must comprise everything and every problem, and the hardest mathematical nut will be child's play for the real man to crack—ifH. P. B. is right!
Now if we but change intonation and instead of knowingall, sayknowingall, we shall get a little step nearer the standpoint from which the question looks more attackable. The question turns first about that much abused word "knowledge." We generally think it to mean the conviction or even certainty, that under given conditions of things some unavoidable result took place, and will take place anew when those conditions will re-occur. A doctor knows that for a certain illness, the name of which implies a certain condition of the human body, a certain remedy will reëstablish other conditions called health. An engineer knows by experiment and calculation, that a certain form of structure under given loads will have to resist such and such forces in its divers parts, and then he lodges his material in such a way, that no part gets too much and no material gets too little anywhere, which he can only do approximately. But all this is not real knowledge and neither the doctor nor the engineer knows what that thing is he is dealing with and how its molecules feel.
Real knowledge has nothing to do with apparent knowledge, and it is useless to ask the real man within to write out the development of a mathematical problem for you. But when it comes to the application of such a mathematical solution whereby one tries to get a certain insight into nature, then it may be said that the real man has that insight into nature without passing by the tedious way of a mathematical investigation.
What science tries to find out, that the real man is already, and he knows without a shade of doubt that which science strives at but never reaches. That essence which constitutes the real man, which has passed through all the kingdoms below man, which we find specified in every human being as the monad, clothed in different garbs so as to appear distinct, that essence knows all about everything we can think of, and that part of the Universe which we can think of constitutes theomniafor man. Having had the experience of all the kingdoms below us, the monad knows them, and our all, as far as human nature is concerned, is that of which we are ableto think; therefore it is right to say, that the real man knows that which the ordinary man comprises under the term "all," and even more, because the all for the man of the present day is less than the all of those who served to clothe the monad at some earlier periods. It thus seems to me that the object of the development of the thinking principle is not to arrive at a better knowledge of nature, but to arrive at some knowledge in a certain way, which way has to be learnt during certain periods of evolution. Discrimination has to be learnt, and if one will learn how to avoid a wrong way, he must pass it first, or else it would remain unknown to him. It seems a strange thing that man has to incarnate so many times during millions of years in order to develop the thinking principle, and after having developed it, abandon it as a wrong way. But is it not the same with the evolution of all the principles in Cosmos? Has not all to be gone through? Has not every plane of consciousness to give way to another? We call them higher or lower—but what about such terms? This is no loss, it is a momentary necessity for a certain purpose of divine law, and although less in one sense we gain and go forward in another, and pass where we have to pass. This must not be misunderstood, and we must not say: Very well, I have to develop intellect, and I shall do it, and shall not care for real knowledge which will all come in time. This is sophistry. Through our will and endowed with the thinking principle we have to regain that knowledge which gradually has become latent while Manas had to be developed, or else we shall never regain it. Thus we have to work with ardent aspiration towards our highest ideals along the lines of nature and divine law; thus we keep balanced, and while doing every one of our daily duties, we inwardly live a life of spirituality and in consciousness divine.