elementary schools? For the moment this problem does not admit of a
practical solution. But that need not discourage us. I admit that in
far too many of our schools the teachers, through no fault of their
own, are what I may call machine-made, and that they are engaged in
turning out machine-made scholars, some of whom in the fullness of
time will develop into machine-made teachers. But there is a way of
escape from this vicious circle,--the path of self-realisation.
That path has transformed the children of a rustic village in a
slow-witted county into Utopians. Why should it not transform some
at least among the boys and girls who are thinking of entering the
teaching profession into Egerias, or at any rate into teachers
of Egeria's type? Even as it is, replicas of Egeria,--not exact
replicas, for she is too original to be easily replicated,
but teachers who, like her, preach and practise the gospel of
self-education,--are beginning to spring up in various parts of the
country; and each of their schools, besides being a centre of light,
may well become a nursery for teachers who will follow in the
footsteps of those who have trained them, and will in their turn do
pioneer work in other schools. The thin end of the wedge is even now
being driven into the close-grained mass of tradition and routine;
and each successive blow that is struck by a teacher of intelligence
and initiative will widen the incipient cleft.
The dream, then, of leading the children of England--the children of
the "masses" as well as of the "classes"--into the path of
self-realisation, is not so widely impracticable as to convict the
dreamer of insanity. And if we could realise the dream, if we could
go but a little way towards realising it, how immense would be the
gain to our country! If the average level of mental development in
England were as high as it is in Utopia, to what height would not the
men and women of exceptional ability be able to rise? The mountain
peaks that spring from an upland plateau soar higher towards the sky
than the peaks, of the same apparent height, that spring from a
low-lying plain. And "the great mountains lift the lowlands on to
their sides."
But this is not the only reason why the gospel of self-realisation
should be preached in all parts of the land. There is another reason
which is becoming more and more urgent. If the Utopian scheme of
education were widely adopted, an antidote would be found to a grave
and growing evil which is beginning to imperil the mental health of
every civilised community, and of this more than any other. The more
civilised (in the Western sense of the word) a country becomes, the
less educative does life--the rough-and-tumble life of the work-a-day
world--tend to become. In a thoroughly "civilised" country, where the
material conditions of life are highly organised, and where industry
is highly specialised, so much is done for the individual by those
who organise his life and labour, that it ceases to be necessary for
him, except within narrow limits, to shift for himself. In a less
civilised community men have to use their wits as well as their hands
at every turn; and resourcefulness and versatility are therefore in
constant demand. The industrial life of a Russian peasant, who is of
necessity a Jack-of-many-trades, is incomparably more educative than
that of the Lancashire cotton operative, most of whose thinking and
much of whose operating may be said to be done for him by the
complicated machinery which he controls; who does, indeed, learn to
do one thing surpassingly well, but in doing that one thing becomes,
as he progresses, more and more automatic, so that the highest praise
we can give him is to say that he does his work with the sureness and
accuracy of a machine. It follows that the more civilised a country
becomes, the more important is the part that the elementary school
plays in the life of the nation,--and that not merely because the
ability to read, write, and cipher is, in the conditions which modern
civilisation imposes, almost as much a "necessary of life" as the
ability to walk or talk, but also and more especially because it
devolves upon the school to do for the citizen in his childhood what
life will not do for him in his manhood, or will do for him but in
scant measure, to stimulate his vital powers into healthful activity,
to foster the growth of his soul. And the more the people in a
civilised country are withdrawn from the soil and herded into mines
and mills and offices, the more imperative is it that the school
should quicken rather than deaden the child's innate faculties,
should bring sunshine rather than frost into his adolescent life. In
such a country as ours the responsibilities of the teacher are only
equalled by his opportunities; for the child is in his hands during
the most impressionable years of life; and those years will have been
wasted, and worse than wasted, unless they have fitted the child to
face the world with resourcefulness, intelligence, and vital energy,
ready to wrest from his environment, by enlarging and otherwise
transforming it, those educative influences which are still to be had
for the seeking, but are no longer automatically supplied.
_The Moral Aspect of Self-Realisation._
If Man, if each man in turn, is born _good_, the process of growth,
or self-realisation, which is presumably taking him towards the
perfection of which his nature admits, must needs make him
continuously _better_. In other words, growth, provided that it is
healthy, harmonious, and many-sided, provided that it is growth of
the whole being, is in itself and of inner necessity the most
moralising of all processes. Nay, it is the only moralising process,
for in no other way can what is naturally good be transformed into
what is ideally best.
This argument, apart from its being open to the possible objection
that it plays on the meaning of the word "good," is perhaps too
conclusive to be really convincing. I will therefore try to make my
way to its conclusion by another line of thought.
The desire to grow, to advance towards maturity, to realise his true
self--the self that is his in embryo from the very beginning--is
strong in every living thing, and is therefore strong in every child
of man. But the desire, which necessarily takes its share in the
general process of growth, must needs pass through many stages on its
way to its own highest form. In infancy, it is a desire for physical
life, for the preservation and expansion of the physical self; and in
this stage it is, as I have already pointed out, uncompromisingly
selfish. The new-born baby is the incarnation of selfishness; and it
is quite right that he should be so. It is his way of trying to
realise himself. As the child grows older, the desire to grow becomes
a desire for self-aggrandisement,--a desire to shine in various ways,
to surpass others, to be admired, to be praised; and though in this
stage it may give rise to much vanity and selfishness, still, so long
as it has vigorous growth behind it and is in its essence a desire
for further growth, it is in the main a healthy tendency, and to call
it sinful or vicious would be a misuse of words.
But when, in the course of time, the average, ordinary, surface
self--the self with which we are all only too familiar--has been
fully evolved and firmly established, the day may come when, owing to
various adverse conditions, the growth of the soul will be arrested,
and the ordinary self will come to be regarded as the true self, as
the self which the man may henceforth accept and rest in, as the
self in virtue of which he is what he is. Should the desire for
self-aggrandisement survive that day, the door would be thrown open
to selfishness of a malignant type and to general demoralisation. And
this is what would assuredly come to pass. In the first place, the
desire for self-aggrandisement, which always has the push of Nature's
expansive forces behind it, would certainly survive that ill-omened
day. Indeed, it were well that it should do so; for "while there is
life, there is hope," and when the soul is ceasing to grow, it is
through the desire for self-aggrandisement that Nature makes her last
effort to keep it alive, by compelling it to energise on one or two
at least of the many sides of its being. In the second place, the
desire would gradually cease to be resolvable into the desire for
continued growth, and would gradually transform itself into the
desire to glorify and make much of the ordinary self, to minister to
its selfish demands, to give it possessions, riches, honour, power,
social rank, and whatever else might serve to feed its self-esteem,
and make it think well of itself because it was well thought of by
"the world." And in the third place, in its effort to glorify and
make much of the ordinary self, the desire would, without a moment's
compunction, see other persons pushed to the wall, trampled under
foot, slighted and humiliated, robbed of what they valued most,
outraged and wounded in their tenderest feelings. It is my firm
conviction that at the present day three-fourths of the moral evil in
the world, or at any rate in the Western world, are the direct or
indirect outcome of egoism,--egoism which, as a rule, is mean, petty,
and small-minded, but is often cruel and ruthless, and can on
occasion become heroic and even titanic in its capacity for evil and
in the havoc that it works,--egoism which in ninety-nine cases out of
a hundred is generated by the desire for self-aggrandisement having
outlived its better self, the desire to grow.
If arrested growth is the chief source of malignant egoism, there is
an obvious remedy for the deadly malady. The egoist must re-enter the
path of self-realisation. His great enemy is his lower self;[34] and
the surest way to conquer this enemy is to outgrow it, to leave it
far behind. When the path of self-realisation has been re-entered,
when the soul has resumed the interrupted process of its growth, the
desire for self-aggrandisement will spontaneously transform itself,
first into the desire for further growth, and then into the desire
for outgrowth or escape from self, and will cease to minister to the
selfish demands of the lower self; and as the lower self is all the
while being gradually left behind by the growing soul, and is
therefore ceasing to assert itself, and ceasing to clamour, like a
spoilt child, for this thing and for that,--it will not be long
before the antidote to the poison of egoism will have taken due
effect, and the health of the soul will have been restored.
But let me say again--for I can scarcely say it too often--that the
growth which emancipates from self is many-sided growth, the growth,
not of any one faculty, or group of faculties, but of the soul as
such. Were it not so, the life of self-realisation might easily
become a life of glorified and therefore intensified selfishness. It
is quite possible, as we know from experience, for a high degree of
"culture" to co-exist with a high degree of egoism. It is possible,
for example, for the æsthetic instincts, when not kept aglow by the
sympathetic, or hardened with an alloy of the scientific, to evolve
a peculiar form of selfishness which leads at last to looseness
of life and general demoralisation. And it is possible for the
scientific instincts, when developed at the expense of the æsthetic
and the sympathetic, to evolve a hard, unemotional type of character
which is self-centred and selfish owing to its positiveness and lack
of imagination. But these are instances of inharmonious growth. When
growth is harmonious and many-sided, it leads of necessity to
out-growth, to escape from self. For the expansive instincts are so
many ways of escape from self which Nature opens up to the soul;--the
sympathetic instincts, a way of escape into the boundless æther of
love; the æsthetic instincts, a way of escape into the wonder-world
of beauty; the scientific instincts, a way of escape into the world
of mysteries which is lighted by the "high white star of truth." It
is only when one of the expansive instincts is allowed to aggrandise
itself at the expense of the others, that the consequent outgrowth of
selfishness in what I may call the internal economy of one's nature
begins to reflect itself in a general selfishness of character. An
instinct may readily become egoistic in its effort to affirm or
over-affirm itself, to grasp at its share or more than its share of
the child's rising life: and if it does, it may gradually suck down
into the vortex of its egoism the whole character of the child as he
ripens into the man. But growth, as such, is anti-egoistic just
because it is growth, because it is a movement towards a larger,
fuller, and freer life: and it is restricted, even more than
one-sided growth,--it is the apathy, the helplessness, the deadness
of soul that overtakes, first the child and then the man, when his
expansive instincts are systematically starved and thwarted,--which
is the chief cause of his incarceration in his petty self.
If three-fourths of the moral evil in the world are due to
malignant egoism, the source of the remaining fourth is, in a word,
_sensuality_. By sensuality I mean the undue or perverted development
of the desires and passions of the animal self,--the desire for
food and drink, the sexual desires, the desire for physical or
semi-physical excitement, the animal passion of anger, and the rest.
As an enemy of the soul, sensuality is less dangerous, because more
open and less insidious, than egoism. The egoist, who mistakes his
ordinary for his real self, may well lead a life of systematic
selfishness without in the least realising that he is living amiss.
But the animal self is never mistaken for the real self; and the
sensualist always has an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that,
in indulging his animal desires and passions to excess, he is doing
wrong. This feeling may, indeed, die out when he "grows hard" in his
"viciousness"; but in the earlier stages of the sensual life it is
sure to "give pause"; and there are, I think, few persons who do not
feel that the sensual desires and passions are so remote from the
headquarters of human life, that in yielding to them beyond due
measure they are acting unworthily of their higher selves. At any
rate we may regard the temptations to sensual indulgence that lie in
our path as evil influences which are assailing us from without
rather than from within; and we may therefore liken them to the
blight, rust, mites, mildew, and other pests that assail hops,
fruit, wheat, and other growing plants.
And, like the pests that assail growing plants, the sensual pests
that war against the soul must be beaten off by vigorous and
continuous growth. No other prophylactic is so sure or so effective
as this. When I was asked whether the Utopian education was useful
or not, I adduced, as an instance of its usefulness, its power of
protecting the young from the allurements of a pernicious literature,
to which the victims of the conventional type of education, with
their lowered vitality and their lack of interest in life, too
readily succumb. This is a typical example of the way in which the
rising sap of life strengthens the soul to resist the temptations to
undue sensual indulgence by which it is always liable to be assailed.
The victim of a repressive, growth-arresting type of education,
having few if any interests in life, not infrequently takes to the
meretricious excitements of sensuality in order to relieve the
intolerable monotony of his days. But the training which makes for
many-sided growth, by filling the life of the "adolescent" with many
and various interests, removes temptations of this particular type
from his path. And it does more for him than this. It generates in
him a state of health and well-being, in which the very vigour and
elasticity of his spiritual fibre automatically shields him from
temptation by refusing to allow the germs of moral disease to effect
a lodgment in his soul. It would be well if our moralists could
realise that the chief causes of weakness in the presence of sensual
temptation are, on the one hand, boredom and _ennui_, and on the other
hand flabbiness and degeneracy of spiritual fibre, and that the
remedy for both these defects is to give the young the type of
education which will foster rather than hinder growth.
We are now in a position to estimate the respective values, as
moralising influences, of the path of self-realisation and the path
that leads to "results." Whatever tends to arrest growth tends also
and in an equal degree to demoralise Man's life; for, on the one
hand, by transforming the healthy desire for continued growth into
the unhealthy desire for mere self-aggrandisement, it generates
malignant egoism, with its endless train of attendant evils; and, on
the other hand, by depressing the vitality of the soul and so
weakening its powers of resistance, it exposes it to the attacks of
those powers and desires which we speak of in the aggregate as
sensuality. If this is so, the inference is irresistible that the
externalism of "civilised" life, with the repressive and devitalising
system of education which it necessitates, is responsible for the
greater part of the immorality--I am using the word in its widest
sense--of the present age. Contrariwise, whatever tends to foster
growth tends also, and in an equal degree, to moralise Man's
life; for, on the one hand, by transforming the desire for
self-aggrandisement into the desire, first for continued growth
and then for out-growth, it gives the soul strength to eliminate
the poison of egoism from its system; and, on the other hand, by
vitalising the soul and so strengthening its powers of resistance, it
enables it to beat off the attacks of those enemies of its well-being
which serve under the banner of sensuality. If this is so, the
inference is irresistible that self-realisation is the only effective
remedy for the immorality of the present age.
The comparison between the two schemes of life may be carried a stage
further. If egoism and sensuality are the two primary vices, the
secondary vices will be the various ways and means by which egoism
and sensuality try to compass their respective ends. Let us select
for consideration one group of these vices,--the important group
which fall under the general head of _untruthfulness_. Insincerity,
disingenuousness, shiftiness, trickery, duplicity, chicanery,
evasion, intrigue, _suppressio veri_, _suggestio falsi_, fraud,
mendacity, treachery, hypocrisy, cant,--their name is Legion. That
externalism, whether in school or out of school, is the foster-mother
of the whole brood, is almost too obvious to need demonstration.
In school the child lives in an atmosphere of unreality and
make-believe. The demand for mechanical obedience which is always
pressing upon him is a demand that he shall be untrue to himself.
Sincerity of expression, which is the fountain-head of all
truthfulness, is not merely slighted by his teacher, but is
systematically proscribed. He is always (under compulsion) pretending
to be what he is not,--to know what he does not know, to see what he
does not see, to think what he does not think, to believe what he
does not believe. And he lives, from hour to hour, under the dark
shadow of severity and distrust,--severity which is too often
answered by servility, and distrust which is too often answered by
deceit. When he goes out into the world, he finds that though there
are many sins for which there is forgiveness, there is one for which
there is no forgiveness,--the sin of being found out; and he orders
his life accordingly. He finds that he must give account of himself
to public opinion, which necessarily judges according to the
appearance of things, and is only too ready to be hoodwinked and
gulled. He finds that to "succeed" is to achieve certain outward and
visible results,--results which are out of relation to the _vraie
vérité_ of things, which are in no way symbolical of merit, and for
the winning of which any means may be resorted to provided that
scandals are avoided and the letter of the law is obeyed. He finds
that the system of advertising which plays so large a part in modern
life, and without which it is so hard to "succeed," is in the main a
system of organised mendacity. Finally, and above all, he finds that
the examination system, with its implicit demands for trickery and
shiftiness, and its almost open invitation to cram and cheat, is not
confined to the school but has its equivalent in "the world," and is
in fact the basis of civilisation as well as of education in the
West.
This is the provision that externalism makes for the practical
inculcation of truthfulness,--a virtue which its religion and
its ethics profess to honour above all others. The life of
self-realisation, on the other hand, is a life of genuine
self-expression; and a life of genuine self-expression is obviously
a life of fearless sincerity. In such a life there is no place for
untruthfulness or any member of its impish brood. The one concern of
the child, as of the man, is to be loyal to intrinsic reality, to be
true to his true self. His standard is always inward, not outward.
He knows that he is what he is, not what he is reputed to be.
_Quantum unusquisque est in oculis Tuis, tantum est et non amplius._
Here, then, as elsewhere, we see that the difference between the
morality of externalism and the morality of self-realisation is a
difference, not of degree but of direct antagonism,--the difference
between a poison and its antidote, between the cause of a malady and
the cure.
While the path of self-realisation is emancipating us from egoism and
sensuality, in what general direction is it leading us? Is its
ethical ideal positive or merely negative? And if it is positive,
what is its character, and how is it to be realised? The answer to
this question will be given in the remaining sections.
_The Social Aspect of Self-realisation._
He must either be richly endowed with "the good things of life" or be
of an exceptionally optimistic disposition, who can view the existing
social order with complete satisfaction. Even among those who are
richly endowed with "the good things of life" there must be many who
realise that the "Have-nots" have some cause for complaint. And even
among those who are of an exceptionally optimistic disposition there
must be some who realise that the grounds of their optimism are
personal to themselves, and that they cannot expect many others to
share their satisfaction with things as they are.
The phrase "the good things of life" is significant, and explains
much. It means that an outward standard of reality has fully
established itself in the community, that money and the possessions
of various kinds which money can buy are regarded as the good things
of life,--things which are intrinsically good, and therefore
legitimate ends of Man's ambition and endeavour, things to pursue
which is to fulfil one's destiny and to win which is to achieve
salvation. It means, in other words, that the life of the community
is a scramble for material possessions and outward and visible
"results"--a scramble which on its lowest level becomes a struggle
for bare existence, and on the next level a struggle for the
"necessaries of life"--and that this legalised scramble is the basis
of the whole social order. In such a scramble the great prizes are
necessarily few, and the number of complete failures is always
considerable; for the wealthier a country, the higher is its standard
of comfort, so that the _proportion_ of failures--the percentage of
men who are submerged and outcast, who are in want and misery--is at
least as great in the wealthiest as in the poorest community, while
the extremes of wealth and poverty are as a rule greatest where the
pursuit of riches is carried on with the keenest vigour and the most
complete success.
There are many persons, rich as well as poor, who, viewing the
legalised scramble from an entirely impersonal standpoint, are filled
with disgust and dismay, and who dream of making an end of it, by
substituting what they call _collectivism_ for the individualism
which they regard as the source of all our troubles. These persons
are known as _Socialists_. Their ruling idea is that the "State"
should become the sole owner of property, and that this radical
change should be effected by a series of legislative measures. With
their social ideal, regarded as an ideal, one has of course the
deepest sympathy. Their motto is, I believe, "Each for all, and all
for each"; and if this ideal could be realised, the social millennium
would indeed have begun. But in trying to compass their ends by
legislation, _before the standard of reality has been changed_, they
are making a disastrous mistake. For, to go no further, our schools
are hotbeds of individualism, the spirit of "competitive selfishness"
being actively and systematically fostered in all of them, with a few
exceptions; and so long as this is so, so long as our highly
individualised society is recruited, year by year, by a large
contingent of individualists of all ranks, drawn from schools of
all grades, for so long will the Socialistic ideal remain an
impracticable dream. An impracticable and a mischievous dream; for
in the attempt to realise it, the community will almost inevitably
be brought to the verge of civil war. When the seeds of socialistic
legislation, or even of socialistic agitation, are sown in a soil
which is highly charged with the poison of individualism, the
resulting crop will be class hatred and social strife.
No, we must change our standard of reality before we can hope to
reform society. Where the outward standard prevails, where material
possessions are regarded as "the good things of life," the basis of
society must needs be competitive rather than communal, for there
will never be enough of those "good things" to satisfy the desires of
_all_ the members of any community. And even if the socialistic
dream of state-ownership could be universally realised, the
change--so long as the outward standard of reality prevailed--would
not necessarily be for the better, and might well be for the worse.
Competition for "the good things of life" would probably go on as
fiercely as ever; but it would be a scramble among nations rather
than individuals, and it might conceivably take the form of open
warfare waged on a titanic scale.[35] Even now there are indications
that such a struggle, or series of struggles, if not actually
approaching, is at any rate not beyond the bounds of possibility. And
on the way to the realisation of the collectivist ideal, we should
probably have in each community a similar struggle for wealth and
power among political parties,--a struggle which would generate many
social evils, of which civil war might not be the most malignant.
But if we are to change our standard of reality we must change it,
first and foremost, in the school. The way to do this is quite
simple. We need not give lessons on altruism. We need not teach or
preach a new philosophy of life. All that we need do is to foster the
growth of the child's soul. When the growth of the soul is healthy
and harmonious, the cultivation of all the expansive instincts having
been fully provided for, the _communal_ instinct will evolve itself
in its own season; and when the communal instinct has been fully
evolved, the social order will begin to reform itself. This is what
has happened in Utopia. There, where competition is unknown, where
prizes are undreamed of, where the growth of the child's natural
faculties, and the consequent well-being of his soul, is "its own
exceeding great reward," the communal instinct has grown with the
growth of the child's whole nature, and has generated an ideal social
life.
At the end of the last section I asked myself what was the ethical
ideal of the life of self-realisation,--the positive ideal as
distinguished from the more negative ideal of emancipating from
egoism and sensuality. I will now try to answer this question.
Emancipation from egoism and sensuality is effected by the outgrowth
of a larger and truer self. This larger and truer self, as it unfolds
itself, directs our eyes towards the ideal self--the goal of the
whole process of growth--which is to the ordinary self what the
full-grown tree, embodying in itself the perfection of oakhood, is to
the sapling oak, or what the ripe peach, embodying in itself the
perfection of peachhood, is to the green unripened fruit. The ideal
self is, in brief, perfect Manhood. What perfect Manhood may be, we
need not pause to inquire. Whatever it may be, it is the true self of
each of us. It follows that the nearer each of us gets to it, the
nearer he is to the true self of each of his fellow-men; that the
more closely he is able to identify himself with it, the more closely
he is able to identify himself with each of his fellow-men; that in
realising it, he is realising, he is entering into, he is becoming
one with, the real life of each of his fellow-men. And not of each
of his fellow-men only. He is also entering into the life of the
whole community of men--(for it is the presence of the ideal self in
each of us which makes communal life possible)--and, through this, of
each of the lesser communities to which he may happen to belong. In
other words, he is losing himself in the lives of others, and is
finding his well-being, and therefore his happiness, in doing so.
But self-loss, with joy in the loss of self, is, in a word, love.
The path of self-realisation is, then, in its higher stages, a life
of love. He who walks in that path must needs lead a life of love.
He will love and serve his fellow-men, both as individuals and as
members of this or that community, not because he is consciously
trying to live up to a high ideal, but because he has reached a stage
in his development beyond which he cannot develop himself except by
leading a life of love, because the path of self-realisation has led
him into the sunshine of love, and if he will not henceforth walk in
that sunshine he will cease to follow his path. He has indeed long
walked in the foreglow of the sunshine of love. The dawn of the orb
of love is heralded by a gradual twilight, which lights the path of
self-realisation, even in its earlier stages. In Utopia the joy on
the faces of the children is the joy of goodwill not less than of
well-being. Or rather it is the joy of goodwill because it is the joy
of well-being, because well-being would not be well-being if it did
not ceaselessly generate goodwill.
That love is "the fulfilling of the law," and therefore the keystone
of every sound system of ethics, is a truth on which I need scarcely
insist. The final proof that the ethics of self-realisation are
sound to the core lies in the fact that the path of self-realisation,
besides emancipating from egoism and sensuality, leads all who walk
in it, first into the foreglow and then into the sunshine of love.
But it is with the social rather than the ethical aspect of
self-realisation that I am now concerned. And the social aspect of
the fact which has just been stated is obviously of vital importance.
Love, which is commensurate with life, has innumerable phases. One of
these is what I have called the communal instinct,--the sense of
belonging to a community, of being a vital part of it, of sharing
in its life, of being what one is (in part at least) because one
shares in its life. If Socialism is to realise its noble dream, this
instinct, strongly developed and directed towards the well-being of
the whole social order, must become part of the normal equipment of
every citizen. And if this is to come to pass, self-realisation must
be made the basis of education in all our schools. What it has done
for the children of Utopia, in the way of developing their communal
instinct and making their school an ideal community, it is capable of
doing for every school in England,--I might almost say for every
school on the face of the earth.
There are faddists who advocate the teaching of _patriotism_ in our
elementary schools. There are Local Education Committees which insist
on _citizenship_ being taught in the schools under their control. By
teaching patriotism, and citizenship is meant treating them as
"subjects," finding places for them on the "time-table," and giving
formal lessons on them. Where this is done, the time of the
teachers and the children is wasted. The teaching of patriotism
and citizenship, if it is to produce any effect, must be entirely
informal and indirect. Let the child be so educated that he will
develop himself freely on all the sides of his being, and his
communal instinct will, as I have said, evolve itself in its own
season. Until it has evolved itself, patriotism and citizenship will
be mere names to him, and what he is taught about them will make no
impression on him. When it has evolved itself, he will be a patriot
and a good citizen in _posse_, and will be ready on occasion to prove
his patriotism and his good citizenship by his deeds, or, better
still, by his life.[36]
While the communal instinct is evolving itself, first in the school
and then in the community at large, the standard of reality will, by
a parallel or perhaps identical process, be transforming itself in
all the grades of society. The inward will be taking the place of the
outward standard; and men will be learning to form a different
conception of "the good things of life" from that which now dominates
our social life. The Socialist will then have his opportunity.
That any member of the community should be in physical want or
irremediable misery, will begin to be felt, partly as a personal
grief, partly as a reflection on himself, by each member of the
community in turn; and steps will begin to be taken--what steps I
cannot pretend to forecast--to make physical want and irremediable
misery impossible. Meanwhile, with the gradual substitution of the
inward for the outward standard of reality, the mad scramble for
wealth and possessions and distinctions will gradually cease, the
conception of what constitutes "comfort" and of what are the real
"necessaries of life" will be correspondingly changed, and men will
begin to realise that of the genuine "good things of life"--the good
things which the children of Utopia carry with them into the world,
and which make them exceedingly rich in spite of their apparent
poverty--there are enough and more than enough "to go round."
_The Religious Aspect of Self-realisation._
The oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn. What is it that is
present in embryo in the new-born child? To achieve salvation is to
realise one's true self. But what is one's true self? The "perfection
of manhood" is an obvious answer to this question; but it explains so
little that we cannot accept it as final. We may, however, accept it
as a resting-place in our search for the final answer.
It is on the religious aspect of self-realisation that I now propose
to dwell. The function of Religion is to bring a central aim into
man's life, to direct his eyes towards the true end of his being
and to help him to reach it. The true end of Man's being is the
perfection of his nature; and the way to this end is the process
which we call growth. When I speak of Man's nature I am thinking of
his universal nature, of the nature which is common to all men, the
nature of Man as Man. Each of us has his own particular nature, his
individuality, as it is sometimes called. The nature of Man as Man is
no mere common measure of these particular natures, but is rather
what I may call their organised totality, the many-sided nature which
includes, explains, and even justifies them all.
What perfection may mean when we predicate the term of our common
nature, we cannot even imagine. The potentialities of our nature seem
to be infinite, and our knowledge of them is limited and shallow.
When we compare an untutored savage or a brutal, ignorant European
with a Christ or a Buddha, or again with a Shakespeare or a Goethe,
we realise how vast is the range--the lineal even more than the
lateral range--of Man's nature, and we find it easy to believe that
in any ordinary man there are whole tracts, whole aspects of human
nature, in which his consciousness has not yet been awakened, and
which therefore seem to be nonexistent in him, though in reality they
are only dormant or inert. These, however, are matters with which we
need not at present concern ourselves. Let the potentialities of our
common nature be what they may. Our business is to realise them as,
little by little, they present themselves to us for realisation. Let
the end of the process of growth be what it may. Our business is to
grow.
In the effort to grow we are not left without guidance. The stimulus
to grow, the forces and the tendencies that make for growth, all come
from within ourselves. Yet it is only to a limited extent that they
come under our direct control. So, too, the goal of growth, the
ideal perfection of our nature, is our own; and yet on the way to it
we must needs outgrow ourselves. What part do we play in this mighty
drama? The mystery of selfhood is unfathomable. The word _self_
changes its meaning the moment we begin to think about it. So does
the word _nature_. The range of meaning is in each case unlimited.
Yet there are limits beyond which we cannot use either word without
some risk of being misunderstood. When we are meditating on our
origin and our destiny, some other word seems to be needed to enable
us to complete the span of our thoughts.
Is not that word _God_? The source of our life, the ideal end of our
being,--how shall we think about these if we may not speak of them as
_divine_? And in using the word "divine," do we not set ourselves
free to stretch the respective meanings of the words "self" and
"nature" beyond what would otherwise have been the breaking point of
each? The true self is worthier of the name of "self" than the
apparent self. The true nature is worthier of the name of "nature"
than the lower nature. But the true self is the Divine Self; and the
highest nature is the Nature of God. If this is so, we serve God best
and obey God best by trying to perfect our nature in response to a
stimulus, a pressure, and a guidance which is at once natural and
divine.
In other words, we serve God best by following the path of
self-realisation. And the better we serve God, the more truly and
fully do we learn to know him. If to know him, and to live up to our
knowledge of him, is to be truly religious, then the life of
self-realisation is, in the truest and deepest sense of the word, a
_religious_ life. Or rather it is the only religious life, for in no
other way can knowledge of God be won.
Let me try to make good this statement. Knowledge of God is the
outcome, not of definite dogmatic instruction in theology, but of
spiritual growth. Knowledge, whatever may be its object, is always
the outcome of growth. Even knowledge of _number_ is the outcome, not
of definite dogmatic instruction in the arithmetical rules and
tables, but of the growth of the arithmetical sense. It is the same
with literature, the same with history, the same with chemistry, the
same with "business," the same with navigation, the same with the
driving of vehicles in crowded streets, the same with every art,
craft, sport, game, and pursuit. In evolving a special sense, the
soul is growing in one particular direction, a direction which is
marked out for it by the environment in which it finds it needful or
desirable to energise. The soul has, as we have seen, a general power
of adapting itself to its environment, of permeating it, of feeling
its way through it, of getting to understand it, of dealing with it
at last with skill and success. As is the particular environment, so
is the subtle, tactful, adaptive, directly perceptive, subconsciously
cognitive faculty,--the "sense," as I have called it--by means of
which the soul acquires the particular knowledge that it needs. The
more highly specialised (whether by subdivision or by abstraction)
the environment, the more highly specialised the sense. The larger
and more comprehensive the environment, the larger and more "massive"
the sense. The acquired aptitude which enables an omnibus driver to
steer his bulky vehicle through the traffic of London is a highly
specialised sense. At the other end of the scale we have the
"massive" spiritual faculties which deal with whole aspects of life
or Nature, such as the sense of beauty or of moral worth.
But there is a sense which is larger and more "massive" even than
these. When the environment is all-embracing, when it covers the
whole circle of which the soul is or can be the centre, the growth
made in response to it is the growth of the soul as such, and the
knowledge which rewards that growth is the knowledge of supreme
reality, or, in the language of religion, the knowledge of God. The
highest of all senses is the religious sense, the sense which gives
us knowledge of God. But the religious sense is not, as we are apt
to imagine, one of many senses. No one individual sense, however
"massive" or subtle it might be, could enable its possessor to get
on terms, so to speak, with the totality of things, with the
all-vitalising Life, with the all-embracing Whole. _The religious
sense is the well-being of the soul._ For the soul as such grows in
and through the growth of its various senses,--its own growth being
reinforced by the growth of each of these when Nature's balance is
kept, and retarded by the growth of one or more of them when Nature's
balance is lost,--and in proportion as its own vital, central growth
is vigorous and healthy, its power of apprehending reality unfolds
itself little by little. That power is of its inmost essence. When
reality, in the full sense of the word, is its object, it sees with
the whole of its being; it is itself, when it is at the centre of
its universe, its own supreme perceptive faculty, its own religious
sense.
If this is so, if the soul in its totality, the soul acting through
its whole "apperceptive mass," is its own religious sense, it is
abundantly clear that the path of self-realisation is the only path
which leads to knowledge of God, and through knowledge of God to
salvation. For self-realisation is the only scheme of life which
provides for the growth of the soul in its totality, for the
harmonious, many-sided development of the soul as such. I have often
dwelt on this point. If we have never before realised its importance
we must surely do so now. A one-sided training, even when its
one-sidedness takes the form of specialising in theology, is a
non-religious, and may well become an irreligious training, for it
does not lead to, and may well lead away from, knowledge of God.
And if we have never before realised how great are the opportunities
and responsibilities of the teacher, we must surely do so now. For a
certain number of years--the number varies with the social standing
of the child, and the financial resources of his parents--the teacher
can afford to disregard utilitarian considerations and think only of
what is best for the child. What use will he make of those years?
Will he lead the child into the path of self-realisation, and so give
a lifelong impetus to the growth of his soul? Or will he, in his
thirst for "results," lead him into the path of mechanical obedience,
or, at best, of one-sided development, and so blight his budding
faculties and arrest the growth of his soul? On the practical answer
that he gives to this question will depend the fate of the child.
For to the child the difference between the two paths will be the
difference between fulfilling and missing his destiny, between
knowledge and ignorance of God.
If any of my readers have imagined that I am an advocate of what is
called "secular education," they will, I hope, now realise that they
have misread this book. Far from wishing to secularise education, I
hold that it cannot be too religious. And, far from wishing to limit
its religious activities to the first forty minutes of the morning
sessions, I hold that it should be actively religious through every
minute of every school session, that whatever it does it should do to
the glory of God.
But how does knowledge of God show itself? Knowledge, so far as it is
real, always shows itself in right bearing, and (if action is called
for) in right action. Knowledge of arithmetic and of other more or
less abstract subjects, shows itself in the successful working of the
corresponding problems, theoretical or practical as the case may be.
Knowledge of the laws of physical nature shows itself in practical
mastery of the forces and resources of physical nature. Knowledge of
history and geography, in a right attitude towards the problems and
sub-problems of these complex and comprehensive subjects, an attitude
which may on occasion translate itself into right action. And so on.
Knowledge of God, being a state or attitude of the soul as such, must
show itself in the right bearing and the right action of the soul as
such, in other words, of Man as Man,--not as mathematician, not as
financier, not as sculptor, not as cricketer, but simply as Man. Now
Man as Man has to bear himself aright towards the world in which he
finds himself, and in particular towards the world which touches him
most closely and envelops him most completely,--the world of human
life. Therefore knowledge of God will show itself, principally and
chiefly, though by no means wholly, in dealing aright with one's
fellow-men, in being rightly disposed towards them, and in doing the
right things to them. I have found it convenient to disconnect the
moral from the religious aspect of self-realisation. We can now see
that in the last resort the two aspects are one.
From every point of view, then, and above all from that of Religion,
the path of self-realisation is seen to be the path of salvation.
For it is the only scheme of life which enables him who follows it
to attain to knowledge of God; and knowledge of God has, as its
necessary counterpart, a right attitude, in general towards the world
which surrounds him, and in particular towards his fellow-men.
But is it possible, within the limits of one earth-life, to follow
the path of self-realisation to its appointed goal? And if not, will
the path be continued beyond that abrupt turn in it which we call
death? The respective attitudes of the two great schools of popular
thought towards the problem of the grave, are in brief as follows.
The Materialists (or Naturalists, as they miscall themselves) believe
that death is the end of life. The Supernaturalists believe that one
earth-life (or even a few years or months) of mechanical obedience to
supernatural direction will be rewarded by an eternity of happiness
in "Heaven." But those who walk in the path of self-realisation, and
whose unswerving loyalty to Nature is rewarded by some measure of
insight into her deeper laws, know that the goal of the path is
infinitely far away, and in their heart of hearts they laugh both the
current eschatologies to scorn. And the higher they ascend, as they
follow the path, the more vividly do they realise how unimaginably
high above them is the summit of the mountain which the path is
ascending in spiral coils.
The Utopian experiment, humble as it is, can, I think, throw some
light on these mighty problems. The relations between the type and
the various sub-types, between the type and the individual, between
the sub-type and the individual--whether in plant or beast or
man--are matters which could not be handled within the limits of this
book, and which I have therefore as far as possible ignored. Nor have
I attempted to deal with the difficult problems that are presented by
the existence of races, such as the Negro, which seem to be far below
the normal level of human development. There is, however, in the vast
region of thought which these and kindred problems open out to us,
one by-way which I must be allowed to follow for a while.
The wild _bullace_ is, I believe, the ancestor of many of our yellow
_plums_. In other words, bullacehood can develop into plumhood, and
even into the perfection of plumhood. Similarly human nature can
develop into something so high above the normal level of human nature
that it might almost seem to belong to another _genus_. But there is
a difference between the two cases. The bullace ideal is in the
individual bullace tree. So, in a sense, is the plum ideal. But the
latter cannot be realised, or even approached, by the individual
bullace tree. It cannot be realised, or even approached, by the
bullace species except through a long course of culture and breeding.
Is it the same with Man? Let us take English rusticity as a
particular type of human nature,--the equivalent of bullacehood for
the purpose of argument. This is a distinct type, and may be said
to have its own ideal.[37] Emerging from this, and gradually
transforming it, is the ideal of human nature, the ideal for Man as
Man. As the bullace ideal is to the plum ideal, so is the ideal of
English rusticity to the ideal of human nature. But whereas the plum
ideal cannot be realised in any appreciable degree by the individual
bullace, the human ideal can be realised in a quite appreciable
degree by the individual English rustic. There have always been and
will always be isolated cases to prove that this is so,--cases of men
of quite humble origin who have attained to high degrees of mental
and spiritual development. These have hitherto been regarded as
exceptional cases. But Egeria has convinced me that under favourable
conditions the _average_ child can become the rare exception, and
attain to what is usually regarded as a remarkably high degree of
mental and spiritual development. Innocent joy, self-forgetfulness,
communal devotion, heartfelt goodwill, gracious manners--to speak of
spiritual development only--are characteristics of _every_ Utopian
child. What are we to infer from this? The bullace ideal is
realisable (under favourable conditions) by each individual bullace
tree,--but the plum ideal is not. The English rustic ideal is
realisable by each individual rustic child. _But so is the human
ideal in Utopia._
But what of the children who do not belong to Utopia? What would have
happened to the Utopian children if there had been no Egeria to lead
them into the path of self-realisation? They would have lived and
died ordinary English rustics,--healthy bullaces, but in no respect
or degree plums. Egeria has convinced me that the average child,
besides being born mentally and spiritually healthy, has immense
capacity on every side of his being. The plum ideal is the true
nature of the plum, but is not the true nature of the bullace. But
Egeria has convinced me that the human ideal--the divine self--is the
true nature of each of us, even of the average rustic child; and she
has also convinced me that each of us can go a long way towards
realising that ideal. Had there been no Egeria in Utopia, the
Utopians would have lived and died undeveloped, having arrived at a
maturity of a kind, the maturity of the bullace as distinguished from
that of the plum, but having failed to realise in any appreciable
degree what the Utopian experiment has proved to be their true
nature. What then? Is this the end of the average man? Will Nature
admit final defeat? The curve of a man's life, as it sweeps round
from birth to death, passes through the point of apparent maturity;
but the real nature of the man has never ripened, and when he
descends into the grave he is still the embryo of his true self.
Will the true self never be realised? Never, if death is indeed the
end of life. But in that case the man will have failed to fulfil the
central purpose of Nature, and, alone among her children, will have
escaped from the control of her all-pervading law of growth.
It is in their desire to keep Man in line with the rest of Nature's
children that so many thinkers and scientists in the West forbid him
to look beyond the horizon of the grave. But in truth it is only by
being allowed to look beyond that horizon that Man can be kept in
line with the rest of Nature's children; for if death means
extinction to him, as it means (or seems to mean) to the beetle or
the fly, he will have lived to no purpose, having failed to realise
in any appreciable degree what every other living thing realises
within its appointed limits,--the central tendencies of his being.
That a living thing, an average specimen of its kind, should within
the limits of a normal life fail completely to realise those
potentialities which are distinctive of its real nature,--fail so
completely that the very existence of those potentialities might, but
for an occasional and quite exceptional revelation, have remained
unsuspected,--is entirely at variance with what we know of the ways
and works of Nature. Yet failure to realise his true manhood is,
outside the confines of Utopia, the apparent lot of nine men out of
ten. An entire range of qualities, spiritual and mental, which
blossom freely in the stimulating atmosphere of Utopia, and which
must therefore exist in embryo in every normal child, fail to
germinate (or at best only just begin to germinate) within the
lifetime of the average non-Utopian.[38] The inference to be drawn
from these significant facts is that the apparent limits of Man's
life are not the real limits; that the one earth-life of which each
of us is conscious, far from being the whole of one's life, is but a
tiny fragment of it,--one term of its ascending "series," one day in
its cycle of years. In other words, the spiritual fertility of the
average Utopian child, taken in conjunction with the spiritual
sterility of the average non-Utopian child (and man), points to the
conclusion which the thinkers of the Far East reached thousands of
years ago,--that for the full development of human nature a plurality
of lives is needed, which will do for the individual soul what
generations of scientific breeding and culture will do for the
bullace that is to be transformed into a plum.
This is one lesson which Utopia has taught me. There is another which
had also been anticipated by the thinkers of the Far East. If under
exceptionally favourable conditions certain spiritual and mental
qualities are able to blossom freely in the space of a few years,
which under normal conditions would remain undeveloped during a
lifetime of seventy or eighty years, may we not infer that there is a
directer path to spiritual maturity than that which is ordinarily
followed? May we not infer that there are ways of living, ways into
which parents and teachers can lead the young, which, if faithfully
followed, will allow the potencies of Man's higher nature to evolve
themselves with what we, with our limited experience, must regard as
abnormal celerity, and which will therefore shorten appreciably Man's
journey to his goal?[39] And if there is a directer path to spiritual
maturity than that which is ordinarily followed, is not the name for
it _Self-realisation_?
I will not pursue these speculations further. But, speaking for
myself, I will say that the vista which the idea of self-realisation
opens up to me goes far beyond the limits of any one earth-life or
sequence of earth-lives, and far, immeasurably far, beyond the limits
of the sham eternity of the conventional Heaven and Hell.
But even if there is the fullest provision in Nature (whether by a
spiral ascent through a long chain of lives, or by some directer
path) for the final development in each individual man of the
potencies of perfect manhood, for the final realisation of the divine
or true self,--what then? What does it all mean? Why are we to follow
the path of self-realisation? What is the purpose of the cycle of
existence? There is an answer to this obstinate question,--an answer
which explains nothing, and yet is final, in that it leaves nothing
to be explained. The expansive energies and desires, to yield to
which is our wisdom and our happiness, are ever transforming
themselves, as we yield to them, into the might and the ardour of
Love. And for love there is no final resting-place but the sea of
Divine Love from which it came. "_Amor ex Deo natus est, nec potest
nisi in Deo requiescere._"
FOOTNOTES:
[25] There is of course an intermediate class of vicious
tendencies, which may be described as apparent rather than actual,
and which are caused partly by immaturity, partly by environment.
Many of the "naughtinesses" of school children belong to this class.
[26] The _physical_ aspect is, of course, of incalculable
importance. My only reason for ignoring it is that I am not competent
to deal with it. The _æsthetic_ aspect is also of incalculable
importance; but I know so little about music or art, that I must
limit my treatment of this aspect to pointing out that until the
musical and artistic instincts of the masses are systematically
trained in our elementary schools, through the medium of free
self-expression on the part of the children, we shall have neither a
national music nor a national art.
[27] Workshops, for the use of the engineering classes, are,
I believe, attached to the "Modern Side" of some of our Great Public
Schools; but I doubt if there is one among the Great Public Schools,
or even among the Preparatory Schools which lead up to them, in which
"hand-work" is part of the _normal_ curriculum.
[28] I know a youth who recently attended Science lectures
for two years at one of the most famous of our Great Public Schools,
and at the end of that time had not the faintest idea what branch of
Science he had been studying. Science is, I believe, seriously taught
in the Great Public Schools to those who wish to take it seriously;
but, if taught at all, it is certainly not taught seriously to the
rank and file of the boys who belong to the "Classical side" of their
respective schools.
[29] See also footnote 2 to page 270.
[30] When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, there was one at
least of my friends who took a genuine delight in the literary
masterpieces of Greece and Rome,--the delight, not of a fastidious
scholar but of a born lover of good literature. He got a "Third" in
Classical "Mods," and was "gulfed" in "Greats." "Serve him right,"
his "dons" must have said, for I am afraid he cut their lectures.
[Greek: hôs apoloito kai allos hotis toiauta ge rhezoi.]
[31] _Stanzas on the Grande Chartreuse_, by Matthew Arnold.
[32] When I apply the epithet "irrational" to the outcry at
Ephesus, I am thinking of the mob, not of the silversmiths. The
latter knew what they were about.
[33] Having said so much in disparagement of the mental
training given in the great Public Schools and the older
Universities, let me now try to make my peace with my old school and
my University by expressing my conviction that those who are studying
the "Humanities," whether at school or college, _and finding pleasure
in their studies_, are receiving the best education that is at
present procurable in England. An old Oxonian may perhaps be allowed
to make public profession of his faith in the special efficacy of
that course of study which is known familiarly as "Greats," the
examination in which is, of all examinations, the most difficult to
cram for and the most profitable to read for.
It is scarcely necessary for me to add that in the older
Universities, as in the great Public Schools, many valuable educative
influences are at work outside the lecture-room. For one thing, the
undergraduates, who come from all parts of the world, are always
educating one another. For another thing, the "atmosphere" of Oxford
and Cambridge does much for the mental and spiritual development of
those who are able to respond to its stimulus. Even the _genius loci_
is educative, in its own quiet, subtle way. But it would be an
impertinence on my part to labour this point. It is because Oxford
and Cambridge educate their _alumni_ in a thousand ways, the worth of
which no formal examination can test or measure, that they stand
apart from all other Universities.
[34] I mean by the "lower self," not the animal base of
one's existence, but the ordinary self _claiming to be the true
self_, and so rising in rebellion against its lawful lord.
[35] In other words, it might conceivably take the form of
_clan_ warfare, highly organised and waged on a world-wide field; and
we learn from the history of the Highlands of Scotland and of Old
Japan that of all forms of warfare the most cruel and relentless,
with the exception of that which is waged in the name of religion, is
the warfare between clan and clan.
[36] There is such a thing as communal egoism, when a man
regards the community or society to which he belongs as a kind of
"possession," to be paraded and bragged about, just as in personal
love there is such a thing as egoism _à deux_. But the communal
instinct which is generated by self-realisation readily purges itself
of every egoistic taint.
[37] I mean by the "ideal" the true nature of the given
species and the true self of each individual specimen.
[38] When I compare the average Utopian with the average
non-Utopian, I am of course thinking of the "masses," not of the
"classes." If the comparison is to have any value, the conditions in
the two cases must be fairly equal. Mentally, the "classes" are, on
the whole, more highly developed (thanks to their more favourable
environment) than the "masses." Spiritually and morally, they are
perhaps on a par with them.
[39] This was the idea which inspired the Founder of
Buddhism, and led him to formulate a scheme of life, in virtue
of which he takes rank (as it seems to me) as the greatest
educationalist, as well as the greatest moralist, that the world
has ever known.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond Holmes