When he had seen the wanderer safely housed he determined to go and
visit a friend who had lived in a town not very far from the metropolis.
This friend had been his most intimate companion when he first became a
student, but being older had finished his studies sooner, and had left
the metropolis before the student’s misfortune. In leaving his place of
exile the student rendered himself liable to punishment, and he gave up
the means of subsistence which had been provided for him there. He was
obliged to go as a wanderer, and trust to the liberality of the people
on the way.
He was hospitably received as a rule. The region was remote from the
metropolis, the inhabitants were glad to talk with a stranger—and the
wanderers were, in general, held to have a stock of exchangeable talk
and news. But he did not speak with any one of what lay present to his
mind, till one occasion.
As he was walking along early in the day, he was hailed by an inhabitant
who looked like a well-to-do farmer. Something in the student’s
appearance attracted him, for, learning that he was on his way to a
distant town, he asked him to stay and take the first meal of the day
with him. This inhabitant had been a clerk employed in the council of
pleasure and pain. But the sedentary life had been too trying for him;
he had come to live in the country on a small possession of his till he
had overcome the strain.
“Did you not find it very dull in the part you come from?”
“No; I found that the people had much of interest to tell me.”
“They have singular traditions. I remember when a deliberation was held
in our council as to whether they were pernicious or harmless; it was
decided that they were harmless and little likely to spread.”
“I have talked a good deal with them since I have lived amongst them,
and have come to the conclusion that in what they believe a great deal
is true.”
“Indeed! you cannot surely believe that our pleasure is distasteful to
any being outside us.”
“No; but I go back to the old notion of which you have heard, that there
is a being who calls us into being, and who is over us; and I believe
that this being takes pain, and so makes life pleasurable to us. You
know that some sensation is passing away, and you know that there must
be more pain that passes away than pleasure.”
“How can I know that?”
“We know that there is not such a very great excess of pleasure over
pain. Now if in all the course of time that has been, the sensation that
has been passing away was pleasure, there would by this time have been
left an excess of pain, and before now we should all have sunk into
apathy. So it is either pleasure and pain mixed which passes away, or
pain alone. I conceive that it is pain alone. These strange doctrines
are true, only curiously expressed. The being over us is continually
bearing pain and so making existence pleasant to us, thus causing us to
move and live. So the pain of our life is that remaining pain which he
does not take.”
“This seems to me a very dismal doctrine. I can imagine some poetry in
the idea of a being of infinite power, strong and glorious, but none in
the idea of a suffering being.”
“When you were a child you thought your father could do everything; but
as you grew up and found that he too had his difficulties, was your
regard for him lessened, or your thankfulness for that which he did for
you?”
“No. And you mean that if we do not regard this being in the same way,
granting his existence, still we should feel gratitude towards him.”
“Certainly we should feel gratitude to him; and, considering the
attitude we have taken towards him, this feeling of gratitude comes over
us with a kind of revulsion. But besides gratitude I do not see why we
must lose any other feeling such as you seem to miss. Do you not
remember how, in the course of the studies we have all been through, we
were told that there were two parts in knowledge—one corresponding to
reality, one introduced by the action of our own minds—so that certain
characteristics which we at first think to be due to the nature of
things in themselves we find out on reflection are only our apprehension
of our own mental action?”
“Yes; we do not perceive the reality absolutely, we apprehend it subject
to the mind’s mode of perceiving.”
“And of course the mode of the mind’s action makes it perceive certain
qualities as parts of the real existence, which do not belong to real
existence at all. These qualities spring from our mind’s own action. In
old times these qualities were considered to be qualities of the reality
instead of introduced there. And much of the impressiveness of the idea
formed of the being of whom we speak was due to a mere magnification and
extension of these qualities—qualities which do not correspond to
anything in reality. So the impressiveness of the idea of this being was
due to the magnification of qualities which originate solely in our
minds.”
“This accounts for the idea having faded away. But tell me definitely in
an instance. Explain by taking some particular quality what you mean.”
“I cannot do that, the thought but floats in my mind; still it is always
good to embody. Something of this sort. When we observe any object we
always attribute to it a certain power. Everything has its own powers of
resistence, of moving, of affecting us in certain ways. Thus whatever we
apprehend, we apprehend as powerful. Now since this quality of powerful
comes in with regard to everything, it is probably introduced by the
mind, and is rather a part of the mental action in giving an idea of
reality than a quality of reality. If so, when we suppose a being to
have the quality of ‘all powerful,’ we are not supposing anything at all
about the being, but are only extending a quality quite barren of any
correspondence with the absolute nature of things. We have left off
talking about the being, and are extending a conception which springs
solely from the only way in which we can perceive.”
“Surely you would say that this being was powerful.”
“Of course, if we think of him at all, we must conceive of him as
powerful; the nature of our mental action demands this. But to dwell on
the notion of his powerfulness is quite barren, the only subject of
thought which has content is to inquire what kind of power he has. There
has been a tendency on the part of those who have thought about this
being to represent his greatness in every respect. But they have not
always been judicious in so doing, because being unable to separate his
real qualities from those which they attribute to him in virtue of their
own mode of perception, they have come to lay stress on descriptions
which on the one hand correspond to nothing in reality, and on the other
hand fail to move those whom they are intended to impress. A cloak has
been woven. The nature of this being is hidden. His nature has been
connected with introspective questions about the origin—of, of all
things, the way in which we perceive. All this must be dashed aside.
This being is the cause of all our life, and yet he needs your help as
you understand help.”
“I should like to accompany you to your friend and hear what he has to
say.”
“Come, certainly.”
So they went together to the town. On the way the clerk felt a
brightness of existence such as he had not enjoyed for a long time. They
talked together, and confided in one another. At length they came near
the town where the student’s friend lived. They separated, the clerk
going into the town, the student to the house of his friend. On his way
there the path led through a small wood of very thick growth. Passing
along, he found that he had left the path. Pausing to reflect in which
direction he ought to go, he thought he heard a sound. It was repeated.
Penetrating deep into the obscurest part of the wood, he searched till
at length he found—carefully concealed—a child, a mere infant.
The child was nearly perished with exposure. He took it up and warmed
it. When the child was a little better the cause of its having been
hidden away was apparent. Its breathing was distressed and laboured. It
suffered under some affection of the lungs, which made it gasp at every
breath. Still in other respects the child was well developed and seemed
strongly made. It seemed to have been left too long without care to
recover. The pain of exhaustion from the neglect, and added to this the
pain of its breathing, was too much for it, it was sinking.
“If I could bear the pain of its breathing,” thought the student, “it
might not sink till I could get some nourishment for it.”
He looked up, for it seemed to him as if some one struck him in the
chest. There was no one there. The pain continued. He did not drop the
child but continued on his way to the house of his friend. When he got
there he noticed a stillness unusual in the houses of the inhabitants.
He entered, and was met by his friend’s sister. He saw at once that
something must have happened. She took him into a dimly lighted room,
where he saw his friend lying motionless and his face quite white.
“He has been suffering great pain for long,” she said; “it was hoped
that if he could bear up the pain would have run its course and he would
not sink. But all we could do was no use.” The room was full of all
things accounted pleasurable, and she looked round as she spoke. “It was
no good.” Taking the child from his arms she left him with the form of
her brother.
Sitting down by his side the student felt the strange oppression on his
chest continue. He went out and found that the child had completely
revived. It had still the appearance of being agonized in its breathing,
but its eyes were bright, and it laughed.
“It will be all right soon,” said his friend’s sister.
“Tell me what was the matter with your brother.”
When he had heard about his malady he returned to the room. After he had
sat there for some time he felt more and more the sorrow for the loss of
his friend, and the need of his counsel. This aimless, inert form, this
lifeless mass, was that which he had come to seek—was the being with
whom he had longed to confer.
He bent over him. “Could I but snatch him back into life; could I but
have one hour’s intercourse with him. If I had been with him I might
have borne some of the pain of his complaint before he was overpowered
with it.” He touched the lifeless hands, they were cold and damp. He
gazed into the expressionless face. He seemed to feel the pain of the
inner struggle his friend had waged against the disease. The quiet of
that still chamber was gone for him; in his own person he felt the pangs
of the struggle for life. A mist came over his eyes, and he sank down
holding his friend’s hands. Suddenly he heard a voice. He rose and
looked about him. The sound came faintly from the lips of his friend.
“I have been very ill,” were the words he caught. “I am so glad you have
come; I was thinking of you in my worst moments. You have come just as I
am getting better.”
Indeed the features were regaining expression, the hands were warm. It
was his living friend again.
After a few hours he was sufficiently recovered to hear about all that
had happened. They talked together long and earnestly. His friend was
convinced.
“Let us go to your companion,” he said.
They went into the town together. They found that the clerk had gone to
the magistrates’ hall where a trial was being held. They did not see the
clerk at first, so they listened to the proceedings. A woman was brought
in who had been kept in prison for some days, accused of concealing her
child. The case was clearly proved. The woman received her sentence with
an appearance of apathy.
“She will not come out of prison alive,” said the student’s friend,
noting her expression.
But he called out to her from where they stood in the body of the court,
“Do not fear, your child is safe.”
The woman’s face brightened, and she went with her jailers buoyantly.
The magistrate had remarked who it was that had spoken, and was about to
give orders for the disturber of order to be brought up for punishment.
But the clerk, who was sitting near to the magistrate with whom he was
acquainted, said:
“This is the one I have told you about; pray do not punish him.”
The magistrate accordingly contented himself with warning the audience
in general terms.
But he said to the clerk, “Something about him is very repulsive to me,
do not tell me anything more about him.”
The three returned together, and together they deliberated as to how the
new idea about the king could be made known. It seemed best to go to the
metropolis and talk with the wisest and most learned there.
The student asked about the child. His friend’s sister came and told him
that its breathing was not any better, but that the child itself was
strong and playful.
“It belongs to the woman who was tried to day,” said the student, “and
must be kept safely till she is out of prison.”
His friend after some deliberation gave it in charge to a faithful
servant to take to the metropolis. A suffering child there would be much
more likely to be overlooked, “and you,” he said, “will be able to look
after it.”
As the student and the clerk were about to set out on their way to the
metropolis his friend took him apart.
“My sister tells me that I had sunk into apathy when you came.”
“Yes.”
“And that you called me back?”
“Yes.”
“How can I thank you! had it not been for you I should never have
enjoyed life again. I am grateful to you.”
“Do not say grateful to me, but rather to that power which does for you
all your life that which I do for you momentarily now. And even now it
is not to me that you should be grateful, but to him, for it is only
because he has enabled me to do so that I have taken of your pain.”
With this he took farewell of his friend, and with the clerk proceeded
on their way.
They had not got very far when a train of servants came up behind them.
They stood by on one side, but from the midst of his attendants a youth
stepped forward.
“I have learned what you have done, and I have overtaken you with great
haste.”
“What is your wish?”
“I want to come with you. I know that you have restored your friend from
apathy to life. No power is so great as that. I have riches in
abundance. All that I have is at your service; teach me your power.”
Now in the valley riches meant abundance of pleasant things. At the time
the student was bearing the constant pain which he took of the child’s
breathing, and the pain also of his friend’s illness. He felt that
before beginning to take pleasure—which was the meaning of having
pleasant things—it would be necessary to give up the power which he was
exercising, so he said to the youth somewhat harshly:
“You cannot compare riches and that which I do, nor can you exchange the
one for the other. First give up all your riches, then you can begin to
learn what I do.”
The youth turned back, but once again spoke, saying:
“I will give up a great part of my riches if you will teach me.”
“If you want to keep any, however small a portion, you cannot do what I
do.”
Then the youth with all his attendants passed away.