THE NATURE OF THE GODS
We must now return to our original definition of the true
philosophical instrument of research in order to see if we can
secure from it a clearer notion as to the nature of the Gods. Such
an instrument is, as we have seen, the apex-thought of the complex
vision using all its attributes in rhythmic unison. For the complex
vision using all its attributes in unison is only another name for the
soul using the body and using something more than the body.
If the soul could use no attributes except those given to it by the
body, it might, or it might not, arrive at the idea of the "sons of the
universe." It certainly could not enter into any relation with such
immortal beings. But since it has arrived at such a conception "it is
impossible for it ever to fall entirely away from what it has
reached." For the same unfathomable duality which gave birth to
the sons of the universe has given birth to men; and between these
two, between the ideal figures who cannot perish and the
generations of souls who for ever appear and for ever pass away
there is an eternal understanding. And the understanding between
these two depends upon the fact that they are both children of the
same unfathomable duality.
But this duality which is the cause why the universe is the universe
and not something other than the universe, must remain as great a
mystery to the souls of the "companions of men" as it is to all the
souls in the world who recognize them as their ideal.
We cannot escape the impression that this complex vision of
ours, which is our instrument of research and which leaves us in
the presence of an unfathomable duality, finds a parallel in the
complex vision of the sons of the universe which is their
instrument of research and which leaves them also in the presence
of an unfathomable duality. We cannot escape from the impression
that to these children of the eternal duality the mystery of this
duality is as dark as it is to ourselves.
They find themselves struggling to overcome malice with love,
even as we find ourselves struggling to overcome malice with
love. They find themselves driven to creation and destruction. The
complex vision, which is their instrument of research, is baffled in
the same way as the complex vision which is our instrument of
research.
If, therefore, in our desperate struggle with the unfathomable
nature of this duality, we demand why it is that the gods have
failed, in spite of their love, to give us any clue to some ultimate
reconciliation, the answer must be that such an ultimate
reconciliation is as much beyond the reach of their vision as it is
beyond the reach of ours. The attainment of such a reconciliation
would seem to mean the absolute end of life as we know it and of
creation as we know it. Such a reconciliation would seem to mean
nothing less than the swallowing up of the universe in unthinkable
nothingness.
The truth is that in this ultimate revelation of the complex vision
we are confronted with an inevitable triad, or trinity, of primordial
aspects. We are compelled to think of a plurality of living souls
of which our own is one; of certain ideal companions of all souls
whose vision gives to our vision its objective value; and of an
external universe which is the creation of this vision.
What the complex vision indicates, therefore, is a system of things
which has a monistic aspect, for there is only one space and only
one succession of time; a pluralistic aspect, for the system of
things gives birth continually to innumerable individual souls; and
a dualistic aspect, for the universe itself is created by the struggle
between love and malice.
What the complex vision does not indicate is any ultimate
principle which reduces this complex system of things to the
unbroken mass of one integral unity. The nearest approach to such
an unbroken, integral unity is to be found in that indefinable
"medium" which makes it possible for the innumerable souls
which compose the universe to communicate with one another and
with their invisible pre-existent companions. It is only the
existence of this indefinable medium which makes it possible for
us to speak of a universe at all. For this medium is the objective
ground, or basis, so to say, from the midst of which each
individual vision creates its own universe, always appealing as it
does so to that objective standard or pattern of truth offered by the
vision of man's invisible companions. What we roughly and
loosely call "the universe" or "nature" is therefore an accumulated
projection or creation of all the souls which exist, held together by
this pervading medium which enables them to communicate with
one another. In this eternal process of creating the universe by
their united visions, all these souls must inevitably appeal,
consciously or unconsciously, to the vision of their pre-existent
companions.
The best justification which can be offered for the expression
_sons_ of the universe as applied to these invisible companions is
to be found in the inevitable anthropomorphism of all human
thought. The breaking point, so to speak, of man's vision, that
ecstasy of comprehension which I call his apex-thought, is the
moment which makes him aware of these companions' existence.
And, at this ecstatic moment, all individual souls find their
personality deepened to such a point that they feel themselves
possessed of the very secret of the ultimate duality, feel
themselves to be, in fact, unfathomable personifications of that
duality. And their intimation or vision with regard to the gods
presents itself to them at that moment as the very nature and true
being of the gods. Yet it must be remembered that this intimation
is a thing which we reach only by pain and exquisite effort; is a
thing, in fact, which is the culminating point of an elaborate and
difficult "work of art" requiring a rhythm and a harmony in our
nature attained by no easy road.
Since, therefore, the reality of these invisible companions though
implied in all our intercourse with one another, is only visualized
as actual and authentic when our subjective vision is at its highest
point, and since when our subjective vision is at its highest point it
conveys the sensation, rightly or wrongly, that what we call our
"universe" is _their_ universe also, it is not without justification
that we use the anthropomorphic expression "the sons of the
universe" to describe these invisible companions.
This expression, the sons of the universe, this idea of an objective
standard of all ideas, is something that we attain with difficulty
and not something that we just pick up as we go along. The
"objective," in this sense, is the supreme attainment of the
"subjective." And although when we have found these companions
they become real and actual, we must not forget that, in the long
process of escaping from the subjectivity of ourselves into the
objectivity of their existence, it was our own subjective vision
with the rhythmic ecstasy of its apex-thought which led us to the
brink of this discovery. Thus the expression "the sons of the
universe" finds its justification. For they are the objective
discovery, as well as the objective implication, of all our human
and subjective visions. We and they together create the universe
and together become the "children" of the world we create.
And although the universe when thus created remains the creation
of man, assisted by the gods, it now presents itself to us, in its
acquired and attained objectivity, as a pre-existent thing which is
rather our parent than our creation. This objective reality of it,
with the inevitable implication that it existed before we came on
the scene at all, and will exist after we have disappeared from the
scene, is a truth towards which our subjective vision has led us,
but which, when once we reach it, seems to become independent
of our subjective vision.
Here again, therefore, in connection with the universe as in
connection with the gods, the creation of our subjectivity is found
to be something independent of our subjectivity and something
that, all the while, has been implicit in the energy of our subjective
vision. And precisely as the subjective vision of man creates the
companions of men and then discovers them to be an objective
reality, so the subjective vision of man creates the universe and
then discovers the universe to be an objective reality. And in both
cases this discovering finds its justification in a recognition that
the idea of this resultant objectivity was implicit in the subjective
energy from the beginning. But the universe once created or
discovered, is found to be the eternal manifestation of that ultimate
duality which is the essence of our own souls and of the souls of
the immortals.
In no other way can we think of the objectivity of the universe; for
in no other way can we think of ourselves. And because it is the
evocation of that ultimate duality which is the very stuff and
texture of our creative vision, the universe becomes naturally the
parent of man's invisible companions as it becomes the parent of
man himself. And thus are we justified in speaking of these
mysterious ones as the "sons of the universe."
It is out of pain and grief that we arrive at the conception of the
nature of the gods. "Those who have not eaten their bread with
tears, they know them not, the Heavenly Powers!" Pain and
sorrow, both physical and mental, seem to soften the porous shell,
so to speak, of the human intelligence, seem to throw back certain
shutter-like shards or scales with which it protects its malignant
ignorance.
It is when our loneliness becomes intolerable, it is when the
poisonous teeth of the eternal malice in Nature have us by the
throat, it is when our malice rises up, in the miserable torture of
hatred, to answer the malice of the system of things, that, out of
the depths, we cry to the darkness which surrounds us for some
voice or some signal that shall give us an intimation of help.
Merely to know that our wretched pain is known to some one
besides ourselves is an incredible relief. Merely to know that some
sort of superhuman being, even without special preoccupation
with human fate, can turn an amused or an indulgent clairvoyance
towards our wretchedness, can "note" it with dispassionate
sympathy, as we note the hurts of animals or plants, is a sort of
consolation. It is a relief to know that what we feel when we are
hurt to the breaking-point is not absolutely wasted and lost in the
void, but is stored up in an immortal memory along with many
other pains of the same kind. That cry, "Only He do know what I
do suffer" of the Wessex peasant is a cry natural to the whole
human race. It is not that we ask to be confronted and healed by
our immortal friend. We ask merely that our sorrows should not
be altogether drowned in the abyss as though they had never been.
There is a certain outrage about this annihilation of the very
memory of pain against which humanity protests.
But it is necessary at this point to beware of the old pathetic
fallacy of human thought, the fallacy of assuming that to be true,
which we desire to be true. What our complex vision reveals as to
the nature of the gods does not satisfy in any obvious or facile
manner this bitter need of humanity. If it did so satisfy it, then for
some profound and mysterious reason man's own aesthetic sense
would revolt against it, would indignantly reject it, as too smooth
an answer to life's mystery.
For man's aesthetic sense seems in some strange way to be in
league with a certain inveterate tragedy in things, which no facile
optimism can ever cajole or melt.
That the gods are aware of our existence can hardly be doubted. That
they feel pity for us, in this or that significant hour, can easily
be imagined. That the evil in us draws towards us what is evil in
them seems likewise a not unnatural possibility. That the love in
us draws towards us the love in them is a thing in complete
accordance with our own relation to forms of life lower than
ourselves. That even at certain moments the gods may, by a kind
of celestial vampirizing, use the bodily senses of men to "fill out,"
as it were, what is lacking in their own materiality, is a
conceivable speculation.
But it is not in any definite relation between the individual soul of
man and the individual soul of any one of the immortals that our
hope lies. If this were all that we could look for, our condition
would be as miserable as the condition of those unhappy ones who
seek intermittent and fantastic relief in attempted intercourse with
the psychic and the occult.
Our hope lies in that immemorial and traditional human gesture
which has, in the unique figure of Christ, gathered up and focussed,
as it were, all the vague and floating intimations of super-human
sympathy, all the shadowy rumours and intimations of super-human
help, which move to and fro in the background of our apprehension.
The figure of Christ has thus become something more than a mere
name arbitrarily given by us to some nameless god. The figure of
Christ has become a symbol, an intermediary, a kind of cosmic
high-priest, standing between all that is mortal and all that is
immortal in the world, and by means of the love and pity that is in
him partaking of the nature of every living thing.
When, therefore, out of the bitterness of our fate we cry aloud
upon the Unknown, the answer to our cry comes from the heart
of Christ. In other words it comes from the epitome and
personification of all the love in the universe. For to the figure of
Christ has been brought, down the long ages of the world, all the
baffled, thwarted, broken, unsatisfied love in every soul that has
ever lived. It is in the heart of Christ that all the nameless sorrows
and miseries, of the innumerable lives that Nature gives birth to,
are stored up and remembered. Not one single pang, felt by plant
or animal or bird or fish or man or planet, but is embalmed for
ever in that mysterious store-house of the universal pity. Thus, if
there were no other superhuman Beings in the world and if apart
from the creative energy of all souls Christ would never have
existed, as it is now He _does_ exist because He _has_ been
created by the creative power of all souls.
But while in one sense the figure of Christ is the supreme work of
art of the world, the culminating achievement of the anonymous
creative energy of all souls, the turning of the transitory into the
eternal, of the mortal into the immortal, of the human into the
divine; in another sense the figure of Christ is a real and living
personality, the one personality among the gods, whose nature we
may indeed assume that we understand and know.
How should we not understand it, when it has been in so large a
measure created by our sorrow and our desire?
But the fact that the anonymous striving of humanity with the
objective mystery has in a sense created the figure of Christ does
not reduce the figure of Christ to a mere Ideal. As we have seen
with regard to the primordial ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness,
nothing can be an Ideal which has not already, in the eternal
system of things, existed as a reality.
What we call the pursuit of truth, or the creation of truth, what we
call the pursuit of beauty or the creation of beauty, is always a
_return_ to something which has been latent in the eternal nature
of the system of things. In other words, in all creation there is a
rediscovery, just as in all discovery there is creation.
The figure of Christ, therefore, the everlasting intermediary
between mortality and immortality, has been at once created and
discovered by humanity. When any living soul approaches the
figure of Christ, or cries aloud upon Christ out of the depths of its
misery, it cries aloud upon all the love that has ever existed in the
world. It enters at such a moment into definite communion with all
the suffering of all the dead and with all the suffering of all the
unborn.
For in the heart of Christ all the dead are gathered up into
immortality, and all their pain remembered. In the heart of Christ
all the unborn live already, in their pain and in their joy; for such
pain and such joy are latent in the ultimate duality of love and
malice, and in the heart of Christ this ultimate duality struggles
with such terrible concentration that all the antagonisms which the
procession of time evokes, all the "moments" of this abysmal
drama, in the past, in the present, in the future, are summed up and
comprehended in what that heart feels.
The ancient human doctrine of "vicarious suffering," the doctrine
that upon the person of Christ all the sins and sorrows of the world
are laid, is not a mere logical conclusion of a certain set of
theological axioms; but is a real and true secret of life, discovered
by our most intimate experience.
The profoundest of all the oracles, uttered out of the depths, is that
saying of Jesus about the "losing" of life to "save" it. This "losing
of life" for Christ's sake is that ultimate act of the will by which
the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, the possessive instinct, the
hatred of the body, the malice which resists creation, the power of
pride, are all renounced, in order that the soul may enter into that
supreme vision of Christ, wherein by a mysterious movement of
sympathy, all the struggles of all living things are comprehended
and shared.
Thus it is true to say that the object of life for all living souls is
the eternal vision. Towards the attainment of the eternal vision the
love in all living souls perpetually struggles; and against the
attainment of the eternal vision the malice in all living souls
perpetually struggles. We arrive, therefore, at the only adequate
conception of the nature of the gods which the complex vision
permits us.
The nature of the gods, or of the immortals, or, as I have preferred
to call them, the sons of the universe, is a nature which
corresponds to our nature, even as our nature corresponds to the
nature of animals or of plants. The ultimate duality is embodied in
the nature of the gods more richly, more beautifully, more terribly,
in a more dramatic and articulate concentration, than it is
embodied in our nature. Between us and the gods there must be a
reciprocal vibration, as there is a reciprocal vibration between us
and plants and beasts and oceans and hills. The precise nature of
such reciprocity may well be left a matter for vague and
unphilosophical speculation; because the important aspect of it, in
regard to the mystery of life and the object of life, is not the
method or manner of its functioning but the issue and the result of
its functioning. And this issue and result of the reciprocity
between mortal and immortal, between man and his invisible
companions, is the eternal vision which they both share, the vision
in which love attains its object.
And the eternal vision, which was, and is, and is to come, is the
vision in which Christ, the Intermediary between the transitory and
the permanent, contemplates the spectacle of the unfathomable
world; and is able to endure that spectacle, by reason of the
creative power of love.