I want people to see either their cells as less parts of themselves than
they do, or their servants as more.
Croesus’s kitchen-maid is part of him, bone of his bone and flesh of his
flesh, for she eats what comes from his table and, being fed of one
flesh, are they not brother and sister to one another in virtue of
community of nutriment which is but a thinly veiled travesty of descent?
When she eats peas with her knife, he does so too; there is not a bit of
bread and butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump of sugar she drops
into her tea, but he knoweth it altogether, though he knows nothing
whatever about it. She is en-Croesused and he enscullery-maided so long
as she remains linked to him by the golden chain which passes from his
pocket to hers, and which is greatest of all unifiers.
True, neither party is aware of the connection at all as long as things
go smoothly. Croesus no more knows the name of, or feels the existence
of, his kitchen-maid than a peasant in health knows about his liver;
nevertheless he is awakened to a dim sense of an undefined something when
he pays his grocer or his baker. She is more definitely aware of him
than he of her, but it is by way of an overshadowing presence rather than
a clear and intelligent comprehension. And though Croesus does not eat
his kitchen-maid’s meals otherwise than vicariously, still to eat
vicariously is to eat: the meals so eaten by his kitchen-maid nourish the
better ordering of the dinner which nourishes and engenders the better
ordering of Croesus himself. He is fed therefore by the feeding of his
kitchen-maid.
And so with sleep. When she goes to bed he, in part, does so too. When
she gets up and lays the fire in the back-kitchen he, in part, does so.
He lays it through her and in her, though knowing no more what he is
doing than we know when we digest, but still doing it as by what we call
a reflex action. _Qui facit per alium facit per se_, and when the
back-kitchen fire is lighted on Croesus’s behalf, it is Croesus who
lights it, though he is all the time fast asleep in bed.
Sometimes things do not go smoothly. Suppose the kitchen-maid to be
taken with fits just before dinner-time; there will be a reverberating
echo of disturbance throughout the whole organisation of the palace. But
the oftener she has fits, the more easily will the household know what it
is all about when she is taken with them. On the first occasion Lady
Croesus will send some one rushing down into the kitchen, there will, in
fact, be a general flow of blood (i.e. household) to the part affected
(that is to say, to the scullery-maid); the doctor will be sent for and
all the rest of it. On each repetition of the fits the neighbouring
organs, reverting to a more primary undifferentiated condition, will
discharge duties for which they were not engaged, in a manner for which
no one would have given them credit, and the disturbance will be less and
less each time, till by and by, at the sound of the crockery smashing
below, Lady Croesus will just look up to papa and say:
“My dear, I am afraid Sarah has got another fit.”
And papa will say she will probably be better again soon, and will go on
reading his newspaper.
In course of time the whole thing will come to be managed automatically
downstairs without any reference either to papa, the cerebrum, or to
mamma, the cerebellum, or even to the medulla oblongata, the housekeeper.
A precedent or routine will be established, after which everything will
work quite smoothly.
But though papa and mamma are unconscious of the reflex action which has
been going on within their organisation, the kitchen-maid and the cells
in her immediate vicinity (that is to say her fellow-servants) will know
all about it. Perhaps the neighbours will think that nobody in the house
knows, and that because the master and mistress show no sign of
disturbance therefore there is no consciousness. They forget that the
scullery-maid becomes more and more conscious of the fits if they grow
upon her, as they probably will, and that Croesus and his lady do show
more signs of consciousness, if they are watched closely, than can be
detected on first inspection. There is not the same violent perturbation
that there was on the previous occasions, but the tone of the palace is
lowered. A dinner party has to be put off; the cooking is more
homogeneous and uncertain, it is less highly differentiated than when the
scullery-maid was well; and there is a grumble when the doctor has to be
paid and also when the smashed crockery has to be replaced.
If Croesus discharges his kitchen-maid and gets another, it is as though
he cut out a small piece of his finger and replaced it in due course by
growth. But even the slightest cut may lead to blood-poisoning, and so
even the dismissal of a kitchen-maid may be big with the fate of empires.
Thus the cook, a valued servant, may take the kitchen-maid’s part and go
too. The next cook may spoil the dinner and upset Croesus’s temper, and
from this all manner of consequences may be evolved, even to the
dethronement and death of the king himself. Nevertheless as a general
rule an injury to such a low part of a great monarch’s organism as a
kitchen-maid has no important results. It is only when we are attacked
in such vital organs as the solicitor or the banker that we need be
uneasy. A wound in the solicitor is a very serious thing, and many a man
has died from failure of his bank’s action.
It is certain, as we have seen, that when the kitchen-maid lights the
fire it is really Croesus who is lighting it, but it is less obvious that
when Croesus goes to a ball the scullery-maid goes also. Still this
should be held in the same way as it should be also held that she eats
vicariously when Croesus dines. For he must return the balls and the
dinner parties and this comes out in his requiring to keep a large
establishment whereby the scullery-maid retains her place as part of his
organism and is nourished and amused also.
On the other hand, when Croesus dies it does not follow that the
scullery-maid should die at the same time. She may grow a new Croesus,
as Croesus, if the maid dies, will probably grow a new kitchen-maid,
Croesus’s son or successor may take over the kingdom and palace, and the
kitchen-maid, beyond having to wash up a few extra plates and dishes at
Coronation time, will know little about the change. It is as though the
establishment had had its hair cut and its beard trimmed; it is smartened
up a little, but there is no other change. If, on the other hand, he
goes bankrupt, or his kingdom is taken from him and his whole
establishment is broken up and dissipated at the auction mart, then, even
though not one of its component cells actually dies, the organism as a
whole does so, and it is interesting to see that the lowest, least
specialised and least highly differentiate parts of the organism, such as
the scullery-maid and the stable-boys, most readily find an entry into
the life of some new system, while the more specialised and highly
differentiated parts, such as the steward, the old housekeeper and, still
more so, the librarian or the chaplain may never be able to attach
themselves to any new combination, and may die in consequence. I heard
once of a large builder who retired unexpectedly from business and broke
up his establishment to the actual death of several of his older
employés. So a bit of flesh or even a finger may be taken from one body
and grafted on to another, but a leg cannot be grafted; if a leg is cut
off it must die. It may, however, be maintained that the owner dies too,
even though he recovers, for a man who has lost a leg is not the man he
was. {92}
VII
On the Making of Music, Pictures and Books