Psychical Miscellanea Part 6

Again, on the larger scale, may not cohesion, as well as chemical affinity, be a sort of affection; in this case a kind of wide social friends.h.i.+p--the "adhesive love" of Whitman, which is to supersede "amative love"--as against the fierce and narrow loves of the elements?

A. C. Benson in _Joyous Gard_ (p. 128) quotes a geologist who says:

It is not by any means certain that stones do not have a certain obscure life of their own; I have sometimes thought that their marvellous cohesion may be a sign of life, and that if life were withdrawn, a mountain might in a moment become a heap of sliding sand.

Yes, and even in sand-grains there is cohesion of particles, and in the smallest particles huge numbers of molecules, and again--still smaller--atoms and electrons. Something elusive yet tremendously potent is still there, in the sand. It would be rash to call it dead and mindless. There seems more sense in admitting that there is something akin to what we know as life and mind in ourselves, permeating the material universe.

And if--to come back to our own planet--if the earth is a living organism, there will naturally be distribution of function, as there is in our own bodies. It would be absurd for the eye to deny life and perception to ear or skin just because their mode of activity is different. It is wiser to concede life and mind where-ever there is action. In the present state of affairs, not only do we get into difficulties by our rash a.s.sumption that there is no mind without protoplasm (_ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke_, as the old materialist too boldly said), but we find it impossible to draw the line between living and non-living. Drops of oil exhibit amoeboid movements, and at the lower end of life the slime-ma.s.s becomes so undifferentiated as to be very much in a borderland between the two states. Probably non-living substances gradate into living ones by imperceptible _differentiae_, as man would be found to gradate back into an anthropoid ape or something of the kind if we could see all the stages. Nature does not make jumps.

Where she seems to do so, it is only because we cannot see how she gets from one place to another distant one. But when we scrutinise the inters.p.a.ce, we see that there is a path. Nature does not jump. She glides.

It is on this line of thought that the disagreement between the schools represented by Sir Edward Schafer and Dr Hans Driesch respectively may, perhaps, be happily resolved. No doubt each may have to make concessions. The mechanist must not claim that mind is _only_ an affair of nitrogenous colloids, for this would be a large a.s.sumption built on a very small foundation; no biologist, however much he knows about nitrogenous colloids, can in any conceivable sense explain his joy in a sunset or a symphony by reference to those substances. Physical causes have physical effects; to say that they cause anything non-physical (_i.e._ mental) is really talking nonsense. And, on the other hand, the vitalist must not deny consciousness to non-protoplasmic Nature.

Negations are dangerous. It is extremely risky to say that a Matterhorn has less spiritual significance--in itself and for the whole, and not only for us--than a cretin who wanders useless and unbeautiful about its lower slopes. The activities of the two are different, that is all we are justified in saying. True, the Matterhorn's are more calculable and predictable, but that does not prove unconsciousness. Human action also is predictable to some extent. And the more wise and unified a man is--the nearer he approximates to ideal perfection--the more accurately we can predict his response to a given stimulus. We might almost argue, on these lines, that inorganic matter has a certain superiority; for it is not capricious. It knows what it wants to do, and does it; or at least--if this is going too far--it does things, and does them _as if_ it knew very well what it wanted to do. To the same conditions and stimuli it always responds in the same way, like reflex action in living beings, and like a.s.sociation in ordinary consciousness. Water always boils punctually at 100C., and freezes at 0C., if the pressure is 760mm. of mercury. "Ca.n.a.l" always makes me think of Panama and Mars--though to other people it might suggest Suez, their different experience having given them other a.s.sociation-couplings. But any one knowing me well, or knowing any one well, could say almost certainly what a.s.sociations "ca.n.a.l" would have--what thought it will evoke. And the same thing is true, to a less extent, of our actions. If a man hits Jack Johnson, the latter will probably hit back. Still more certain is it that no one will hit him unless drunk or insane or in some sort of very exceptional circ.u.mstances. If, on the other hand, somebody hits me, the outcome is less certain. It will depend to a greater extent on the result of reflection and judgment--perhaps partly on my estimate of the other fellow's weight, age, training and science! Yet anyone knowing me well, and perceiving the main conditions, could predict with fair approach to accuracy what I should do. Yet I am undoubtedly a conscious being. Some actions of conscious beings, then, are predictable, if we know the conditions. Indeed, in the ma.s.s, human action is calculable with precision--witness the various kinds of insurance. Why then deny consciousness to the Matterhorn, because _all_ its actions are calculable and predictable? The difference is one of degree, not kind.

And indeed _are_ all its actions predictable? The fact is, they are only hypothetically so. We say that they would be if we knew enough. But we might say the same of the actions of a man. The truth is, that if we say it of either we are arguing dangerously, from our ignorance and not from our knowledge. It is indeed as risky to say that we could predict the Matterhorn's actions _in toto_, as to say that we cannot predict the man's; for we are continually finding that matter does things which we did not formerly suspect--_e.g._ radio-activity. Clearly, we cannot predict all the activities of the Matterhorn: many may depend on undiscovered properties. So it seems that even if some human actions, such as Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation and Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy and Raphael's Sistine Madonna, are strictly unpredictable, it still does not sufficiently differentiate us from the Matterhorn, which on its part also has its unpredictabilities.

As to what parts of matter have separate spirits--where the Snowdon-spirit ends and the Moel Siabod spirit begins, and so on--we need not trouble much about that. This individualising of parts is a reasonable supposition, but it is not necessary to press it. Mr Maurice Hewlett has seen the _genius loci_ of a sunny woodland landscape translated into human idiom as an opulent t.i.tianesque beauty (_Lore of Proserpine_), and Manfred sees or feels a spirit of the Alps; but these are details. The only thing that matters is the ensoulment of the earth as a whole. No doubt its spirit-part is divided up somehow, correspondent to its material conformation, as our spirits are divided from each other. The division, however, is not a hermetic sealing off. The universe is continuous. Indeed its parts are inter-penetrative, for every particle influences every other particle--and a thing cannot act where it is not. Similarly, human beings are found to have modes of communication other than those hitherto recognised by orthodox science, and are somehow able to influence others without regard to distance. We seem to be connected with each other in the unseen, subliminal, spiritual region. Our separateness is illusory. So with individualisations of earth-features. They have individual aspects, both on the physical and spiritual side; but they are part of the one earth and its one spirit, as we ourselves are. And that earth-spirit is part of the universe-spirit or G.o.d, as the human spirit is part of the earth-spirit.

It is perhaps difficult, at first, to think of the earth as having a life and consciousness of its own, for we are located at little points, and do not see it whole, nor do we see from the inside. We are like an eye which looks at the body of which it forms a part, and finds it difficult to believe in auditory, tactile, olfactory experience; more difficult still to conceive of pure thought, emotion, will. If the earth seems a dead lump, however, think of the human brain. It is a mere lump of whitish filaments, _seen from outside_. But its inner experience is the rich and infinitely detailed life of a human being. So also may the inner experience of the earth be incomparably richer than its outer appearance indicates to our external senses. Objectively, our brains are part of the earth: subjectively, _we see in ourselves a part of what the earth sees in itself_.

In thinking of the earth as an organised being, we must guard against the error of the ancients who called it an animal. It is not an animal.

It is a Being of a higher character than any animal, for it includes all animals and all human beings, comprising in its spirit all their spiritual activities, and having its own activities as well. We are to it, as our blood-corpuscles are to us; and to think of the earth-spirit as being like our spirits would be equivalent to a blood-corpuscle thinking of its containing body as another corpuscle, only bigger.

Whereas the truth is that a man has feelings and cognitions and purposes, and performs acts, which the corpuscles cannot in the least comprehend. (Somewhat similarly, a drop cannot have waves, or a small celestial body an atmosphere; the lower cannot have what the higher has, nor can it understand it.) The corpuscle may know or believe that its conscience or intuition is a sort of leakage down to it, of the mind or will of its greater self (the voice of its G.o.d), and that in so far as it does its duty according to its lights it is a.s.sisting the purposes of that higher Being of which it forms a part; and this faith is its highest wisdom. So with us. Human duty, done sincerely according to our lights, is furthering the purposes of the higher Being in whom we live and move. This faith is our highest wisdom concerning our relation to the earth-spirit. We see, then, that there is a good deal of sense in faith and intuition. They are rationally justified. By them we are dimly in touch with the over-soul on our inner side: not _really_ dimly, for the connection is close and real, but dimly to our normal consciousness.

The connection _via_ intellect is an external, round-about affair, necessary and useful, but different. We need to cultivate both. This is the essence of the philosophy of Bergson. There is more than one way of receiving truth. Science is apt to overlook the intuitional way.

On this conscience-side or moral aspect, the Fechnerian idea is particularly fruitful and illuminating. The a.n.a.logy of our own mind is once more the key--the mirror wherewith to view the greater landscape, the village wherefrom to draw inferences about nations. In childhood, the world is, as James said, a big, blooming, buzzing confusion: sensations pour in quite unconnected; the baby sees the moon, and stretches out an arm to grab it, thus learning that it is not grabable.

It is only gradually that the child learns to a.s.sociate sounds with sights; to know what sounds indicate its mother's presence or proximity, and what sounds its father's. Gradually, individual experiences get linked up and harmonised. Then other disjointednesses arise. Foolish impulses war against better judgment and parents' advice, and the youth's mind is "torn", as we say, very aptly describing the feeling.

Growing older and wiser, his mind becomes more unified and consequently more calm. His powers are marshalled and directed consciously at a goal or goals. Wayward impulses are reined in. We feel that poise and strength and wisdom are attained: never perfectly and ideally, but at least to a considerable degree, as compared with the earlier state.

So with the earth-spirit. Being far greater than the human subsidiary spirits, it is longer in coming to maturity. Its elements are still largely at loggerheads with each other. The nations war against each other, and universal peace seems a long time in coming.

But steadily, steadily works the earth-spirit, and the nations almost unconsciously--like somnambulists--carry out its will. They are working, consciously or unconsciously, towards universal at-one-ment. A League of Nations has arisen, and the Federation of the World is in sight. Union is the political watch-word. Labour is combining throughout the world.

East is learning from West, and West from East. China sends her students to Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Harvard, and welcomes Western methods. India repays our civilising with the poems of Tagore. In trade, thousands of small businesses are unified in a few great combines, preparing for some sort of Socialism. Finance spreads its world-wide network. Science is becoming international. The frontiers are melting; coalescence, unity, harmony are being achieved. The earth-spirit is reconciling its warring elements. When it succeeds in the complete reconciliation; when the era of universal peace and brotherhood shall dawn; when it reaches its huge equivalent of the ripe, calm, contented wisdom of human age--ah, then will come a state of things which we can but dimly prefigure. But it will come. The age of gold is in the future, not the past. It is our duty and our privilege to hasten the coming of this millennium. And even this is not the end. We cannot conceive the things that shall be. Eye hath not seen, or ear heard. Enough for us to know the tendency, and to trust ourselves to it, actively co-operating.

Before beginning, and without an end, As s.p.a.ce eternal, and as surety sure, Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good, Only its laws endure.

This is its touch upon the blossomed rose, The fas.h.i.+on of its hand shaped lotus-leaves; In dark soil and the silence of the seeds The robe of Spring it weaves.

It maketh and unmaketh, mending all; What it hath wrought is better than had been; Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans, Its wistful hands between.

This is its work upon the things ye see: The unseen things are more; men's hearts and minds, The thoughts of peoples and their ways and wills, Those, too, the great Law binds.

--Sir Edwin Arnold, _Light of Asia_.

Is it asked: "Who is the Law-giver, and to what end is the Law?" The question is foolish. Parts cannot know wholes, and the whole does not want parts to be anything but what they obviously are. Each fits into its place, and can do useful work there. Let it keep to tasks "of a size with its capacity"--as a Kempis says--and leave the rest. "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy G.o.d?"

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AFTER THE WAR

There is naturally and rightly a great deal of anxiety in the minds of most thoughtful people as to the state of religion after the war. The old order seems to have come down in chaos about our ears, and we are wondering what shape the new building will take. Even our clergy, or some of them, are honestly confessing that beliefs can never be just the same again; to name only two things, they feel that the literal acceptance of the non-resistance doctrine is no longer unqualifiedly possible, as many were formerly inclined to maintain; for the aggression of Germany has made clear the necessity of resisting evil; second, that the old Protestant doctrine of immediate heaven or h.e.l.l cannot satisfactorily be applied to many of the millions of young fellows who have gone over; some idea of more gradual progress through an intermediate state seems more reasonable. But will this be sufficient?

Shall we jog on again, after this world-shaking cataclysm, with such a very microscopical tr.i.m.m.i.n.g--such an almost imperceptible sail-reefing--as this? Will not rather the whole theological scheme have to be remodelled? Can nations which have suffered as the belligerents have suffered--even those at home, still more the brave lads who have gone through experiences such as they never dreamed of in their worst nightmares--can these people, even if they wish, accept the old scheme, or anything like it?

I am not going to try to answer such a large question directly.

Mr Wells has attempted something of the sort in his book, _G.o.d the Invisible King_, and he prophesies a religious revolution. It may come as he thinks, but it is perhaps more probable that, in spite of the most earth-shaking events, a certain continuity of thought will be maintained. New religions are not manufactured complete while you wait, like Pallas emerging full-armed from the head of Zeus; or, if they are, by such brilliant Olympians as Mr Wells, they do not get themselves accepted. But there probably will be enough of a change to be called a very considerable thought-revolution, even allowing for some inevitable continuity; and inasmuch as each expression of opinion counts as a datum and as a directive agency, I venture to make my prophecy. And I avoid the negative side, also any argument as to whether or why this or that particular doctrine will become obsolete; I think it better to let obsolescent beliefs drop quietly into their limbo, and to concern ourselves with the living ones that will replace them.

First and most important, the idea of G.o.d. We have heard, over and over again, the pathetic cry: "Why does G.o.d permit such things? Surely He must be either not All-good or not Almighty?" And one hears of men, even among the clergy, whose minds have been clouded by this difficulty.

Mr Wells solves the problem in the fas.h.i.+on of J. S. Mill and the late William James, by postulating a finite G.o.d, a good being who is doing his best but who is struggling with a refractory material. To many people this seems a helpful notion, for it saves G.o.d's goodness and gives a pleasurable sense of being co-workers with Him in His effort to improve things. But to many of us it is unsatisfactory. Indeed, if one could say such a thing of the author of _Bealby_ and of the most genial of modern philosophers, we might say that the finite-G.o.d idea seems impossible to anyone with a sense of humour. Is it not really rather ridiculous of us to decide so solemnly that G.o.d is no doubt a good fellow but that He is having a tough time of it in fighting Satan, and that there does not seem to be any certainty of His winning? Perhaps the idea appeals to adventurous spirits like Wells and James because it has an air of being a sporting event, and promises excitement; but, I repeat, is it not a rather ridiculous proposition for us small creatures to make? "Finite" and "Infinite" are words; I am not sure that they have any very clear meaning. As to "infinite" in particular, the idea is only a negative one; we think of something finite, and then say "it is not that". But even of "finite", can we say that it has any useful clear meaning? The pen with which I write this may be said to be finite, for I can give its dimensions, and in many ways can define the limits of its powers. But inasmuch as every particle in it attracts every other particle of matter in the universe, the little pen's finiteness or infinity depends on whether the universe itself is finite or infinite; and that is a bigger question than our small wits can settle. And if it is so with a pen, will it not be more so with greater things?

We measure things against the foot-rule of our own selves. We can imagine something much greater than those selves, both physical and spiritual. But when it comes to conceiving the whole physical universe of which we form an insignificant part, I do not feel that we can know whether it is finite or not. It is too big for our foot-rule. Even when dealing with the distances of the stars, we realise that the billions of miles which we can talk about so glibly do not convey much to our minds.

We can think of a distance of a few miles fairly clearly, recalling how long it takes us to walk so far; but greater distances soon become mere figures, not representing anything that we can picture. And when we reach the conception of the whole physical universe, we get quite out of our depth. We do not know whether it is finite or infinite; we know only that it is inconceivably greater than we are.

So with the spirit which energises through it. Beginning with what we know best, we find ourselves acquainted with a world of mental phenomena bound together in and by what we call our self. Whatever we think of Hume's argument that a ma.s.s of experiences do not involve a soul that has them, it is reasonable and useful to have a name for the active thing which perceives and thinks and acts and feels, whether we call it soul or spirit or mind or self or _x_. It is something which maintains a sort of ident.i.ty, in spite of growth and change; and it is marked off from other selves. John Smith has John Smith's experiences, not William Jones's. This individual spirit energises through each of our bodies. Of our own spirit we have a very close knowledge, of other spirits we have a rather more remote knowledge from inference; we infer their states of mind from the states of body which we observe, or from the material effects which they cause in speaking or writing. Pa.s.sing from the inferred human spirits (inferred because certain lumps of matter act in a way similar to that of the lumps which we call our own bodies), we come to other and larger and very different pieces of matter such as planets. It may seem at the first glance an absurd idea, but I for one cannot think of matter as dead, or of a whole planet without any soul except what is in the human bodies which make up an infinitesimal portion of its ma.s.s. It seems to me that there must be some sort of mind energising through the planet-ma.s.s as my own mind energises through my body-ma.s.s. And, carrying the idea further, we arrive at a conception of the whole universe as ensouled by a Being who in the material immanent manifestation is the Logos of the Christian doctrine, but who also transcends the material part as indeed the Christian doctrine teaches. This spirit, transcending the physical universe as well as energising through it, is greater in comparison with our spirits than the physical universe is in comparison with our bodies. Therefore, once more, and to a greater degree, we are out of our depth. To throw words like finite and infinite at such a Being is to make ourselves ridiculous. It is like a microbe sticking its own adjective-labels--if it has any--on a man, whom the microbe's vocabulary as a matter of fact will not apply to. G.o.d is too great for our measure. He is high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea--yea, than the whole universe itself.

This conclusion of Zophar the Naamathite, acquiesced in by Job at the end of the argument, seems to some minds an evaporation of G.o.d into an Absolute without any human attributes. We feel the necessity or at least the desirability of regarding Him as good, loving, etc., and we shrink from any de-personalisation. But there is a way out of the difficulty.

G.o.d is incomprehensible, as the Creed says; parts cannot comprehend wholes. But there is something deep in us, call it what you will, which tells us that our ideals of Good, Truth, and Beauty are divine; are G.o.d in so far as we are able to cognise Him. Good, true, beautiful actions and thoughts are G.o.d manifested through our personal limitations; they are rainbow colours broken out of the pure white light of G.o.d. We do right to wors.h.i.+p them. They are the highest we can comprehend, though we may reach lame hands of faith to the apprehension of the Unconditioned.

But this is a very great mystery, revealed only to the mystic. And it is a dangerous path, for by reaching "beyond good and evil" we lose touch with humanity and with the virtues we can exercise, risking the insanity to which Nietzsche so logically succ.u.mbed. We may dimly apprehend the Incomprehensible, but we must live and work among comprehensibilities.

That is what we are here for. G.o.d is conceived by us--and rightly so conceived--as Good, Truth, Beauty, though we can see that as He really is He must transcend them. Mr Wells's distinction between the Finite G.o.d and the Veiled Being is not an ultimate. The two are one, seen as two because of our limitations. They are the rainbow and its source. The sun cannot be looked upon directly, but only when dimmed or reflected.

Then as to immortality. The deaths of so many of our best, and the sorrow thus brought into almost every home, force this question into prominence. If blank pessimism is to be avoided, many people feel that they must have some a.s.surance of the continued existence of those who have made the supreme sacrifice--a sacrifice at the call of duty, greater probably than any sacrifice ever made by us of the older generation who have lived in the smooth times of peace. We feel that if these magnificent young lives have come to nought, have been _wasted_, there is no rational religious belief possible to us. Accordingly we inquire about immortality. And, curiously enough, Science, which in the last generation tended to deny or discredit individual survival of bodily death, now gives a quite opposite verdict. Psychical research brings forward scientific evidence for that welcome belief. It seems too good to be true; but it is true. Public opinion has not yet fully accepted it--nor is it well that opinion should change too rapidly--for it was well drenched in materialism during the heyday of physical science and its astonis.h.i.+ng applications in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but the leaders of thought in almost all branches--scientific, legal, literary, and what not--are now admitting that the evidence is at least surprising, and those who have studied it most are one by one announcing that it is convincing. There are many questions yet to solve, such as the nature and occupations of the future life, concerning which there are different views, and the problems may turn out to be insoluble; but the main problem seems on the way to be settled. The survival of human personality is a fact. And the indications, so far as we have got, suggest that the next stage is a life of opportunity, work, progress, even more than the present one.

There is much to be thankful for in even this only incipient revelation.

It is salvation great and joyous, to those reared amid unacceptable theories of a blank materialism or the much more dreadful h.e.l.l-doctrines of the theologians.

The religion of the coming time, then, seems likely to be mainly based on these two articles, belief in G.o.d in the way indicated, and belief in survival and progress on the other side. Both beliefs are empirical, and are thus in harmony with the temper of our time. They begin with the things which are most real to us, first the fact of conscious experience, then the external world, and reason upward therefrom, instead of beginning with metaphysical ent.i.ties and attributes, and reasoning down--and failing to establish contact with the material world. Religious experience there still may be, and this may give rise to quite new and unexpected forms of belief or wors.h.i.+p; but on the whole the tendency of thought for the last three hundred years has been increasingly empirical, and the success of the method is likely to ensure its continuance. It may be true that the ideal world is the more real--probably it is--that out of thought's interior sphere these phenomenal wonders of the world rose to upper air, as Emerson says; but for us in the present circ.u.mstances the way back to universe-spiritualisation is _via_ experience (and mainly sense-presentations) carefully observed and studied. If these scientific methods, which are open to everybody, can lead to belief in G.o.d and a spiritual world to which we pa.s.s at death, it seems unnecessary to return to the bad old days when sporadic experiences of this or that ecstatic, or logic-chopping by this or that theologian, led to beliefs and cults of widely differing character according to the idiosyncracy of the writer. A method which is open to all and the rules of which are agreed on will be likely to yield something like unanimity.

The churches may yet form one fold, if they will; in which, with variations to satisfy different aesthetic or symbolistic needs, all souls may find the answer to their queries, healing for their sorrow, and scope for their reverence and love; in a word, salvation.