The two individuals in the foregoing parable were worrying each other
with fundamental questions. And what makes the parable unrealistic is
the improbability of real individuals ever doing any such thing. If
the plain man, for instance, has almost ceased to deal in fundamental
questions in these days, the reason is not difficult to find. The
reason lies in the modern perception that fundamental questions are
getting very hard to answer. In a former time a dogmatic answer was
ready waiting for every fundamental question. You asked the question,
but before you asked it you knew the answer, and so there was no
argument and nearly no anxiety. In that former time a mere child could
glance at your conduct and tell you with certainty exactly what you
would be doing and how you would be feeling ten thousand years hence,
if you persisted in the said conduct. But knowledge has advanced since
then, and the inconvenience of increased knowledge is that it
intensifies the sense of ignorance, with the result that, though we
know immensely more than our grandfathers knew, we feel immensely more
ignorant than they ever felt. They were, indeed, too ignorant to be
aware of ignorance--which is perhaps a comfortable state. Thus the
plain man nowadays shirks fundamental questions. And assuredly no
member of the Society for the Suppression of Moral Indignation shall
blame him.
All fundamental questions resolve themselves finally into the
following assertion and inquiry about life: "I am now engaged in
something rather tiresome. What do I stand to gain by it later on?"
That is the basic query. It has forms of varying importance. In its
supreme form the word "eternity" has to be employed. And the plain man
is, to-day, so sensitive about this supreme form of the question that,
far from asking and trying to answer it, he can scarcely bear to hear
it even discussed--I mean discussed with candour. In practise a frank
discussion of it usually tempts him to exhibitions of extraordinary
heat and bitterness, and wisdom is thereby but obscured. Therefore he
prefers the disadvantage of leaving it alone to the dissatisfaction of
attempting to deal with it. The disadvantage of leaving it alone is
obvious. Existence is, and must be, a compromise between the claims of
the moment and the claims of the future--and how can that compromise
be wisely established if one has not somehow made up one's mind about
the future? It cannot. But--I repeat--I would not blame the plain man.
I would only just hint to him, while respecting his sensitiveness,
that the present hour is just as much a part of eternity as another
hour ten thousand years off.
The second--the most important--form of the fundamental question
embraces the problem of old age. All plain men will admit, when
faithfully cross-examined, a sort of belief that they are on their way
to some Timbuctoo situate in the region of old age. It may be the
Timbuctoo of a special ambition realized, or the Timbuctoo of luxury,
or the Timbuctoo of material security, or the Timbuctoo of hale
health, or the Timbuctoo of knowledge, or the Timbuctoo of power, or
even the Timbuctoo of a good conscience. It is anyhow a recognizable
and definable Timbuctoo. And the path leading to it is a straight,
wide thoroughfare, clearly visible for a long distance ahead.
The theory of the mortal journey is simple and seldom challenged. It
is a twofold theory--first that the delight of achievement will
compensate for the rigours and self-denials of the route, and second
that the misery of non-achievement would outweigh the immediate
pleasures of dallying. If this theory were not indestructible, for
reasons connected with the secret nature of humanity, it would
probably have been destroyed long ago by the mere cumulative battering
of experience. For the earth's surface is everywhere thickly dotted
with old men who have achieved ambition, old men drenched in luxury,
old men as safe as Mont Blanc from overthrow, old men with the health
of camels, old men who know more than anybody ever knew before, old
men whose nod can ruin a thousand miles of railroad, and old men with
consciences of pure snow; but who are not happy and cannot enjoy life.
The theory, however, does happen to be indestructible, partly because
old age is such a terrible long way off, partly because the young
honestly believe themselves to have a monopoly of wisdom, partly
because every plain man is convinced that his case will be different
from all the other cases, and chiefly because endeavour--not any
particular endeavour, but rather any endeavour!--is a habit that
corresponds to a very profound instinct in the plain man. So the
reputation of Timbuctoo as a pleasure resort remains entirely
unimpaired, and the pilgrimages continue with unabated earnestness.
And there is another and a paramount reason why the pilgrimages should
continue. The two men in the parable both said that they just had to
start--and they were right. We have to start, and, once started, we
have to keep going. We must go somewhere. And at the moment of
starting we have neither the sagacity nor the leisure to invent fresh
places to start for, or to cut new paths. Everybody is going to
Timbuctoo; the roads are well marked. And the plain man, with his
honour of being peculiar, sets out for Timbuctoo also, following the
signposts. The fear of not arriving keeps him on the trot, the fear of
the unknown keeps him in the middle of the road and out of the forest
on either side of it, and hope keeps up his courage.
Will any member of the Society for the Suppression of Moral
Indignation step forward and heatedly charge the plain man with
culpable foolishness, ignorance, or gullibility; or even with
cowardice in neglecting to find a convincing answer to the fundamental
question about the other end of his life?