CHAPTER IV

[Italics are marked with _underscores_.]

THE DRAMA

OF LOVE AND DEATH

_A Study_

_of Human Evolution and_

_Transfiguration_

By

Edward Carpenter

NEW YORK AND LONDON

MITCHELL KENNERLEY

1912

_Copyright 1912 by_

_Mitchell Kennerley_

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

_The Delphian Sibyl overlooking the Earth_ vii

I. Introduction 1

II. The Beginnings of Love 5

III. Love as an Art 24

IV. Its Ultimate Meanings 48

V. The Art of Dying 69

VI. The Passage of Death 87

Note on Consciousness in the Body 107

VII. Is there an After-Death State? 111

VIII. The Underlying Self 131

Note on Mediumistic Trance 156

IX. Survival of the Self 162

X. The Inner or Spiritual Body 176

XI. The Creation and Materialization of Forms 192

XII. Reincarnation 215

XIII. The Divine Soul 237

XIV. The Return Journey 248

XV. The Mystery of Personality 262

XVI. Conclusion 284

Appendix 289

_The Delphian Sibyl_

(_On her mountain-slope overlooking the Earth_)

_The coastline ranges far, the skies unfold;

The mountains rise in glory, stair on stair;

The darting Sun seeks Daphne as of old

In thickets dark where laurel blooms are fair.

The ancient sea, deep wrinkled, ever young,

With salt lip kisses still the silver strand;

In caverns dwell the Nymphs, their loves among,

And Titans still with strange fire shake the land._

_A thousand generations here have come,

And wandered o’er these hills, and faced the light;

A thousand times slight man from mortal womb

Has leapt, and lapsed again into the night.

Here tribesmen dwelt, and fought, and curst their star,

And scoured both land and sea to sate their needs;

Prophetic eyes of youth gazed here afar,

With lips half open brooding on great deeds._

_Nor dreamed each little mortal of the Past,

Nor the deep sources of his life divined,

Watching his herds, or net in ocean cast,

Deaf to th’ ancestral voices down the wind;

Nor guessed what strange sweet likenesses should rise,

Selves of himself, far in the future years,

With his own soul within their sunlit eyes,

And in their hearts his secret hopes and fears._

_Yet I—I saw. Yea, from my lofty stand

I saw each life continuous extend

Beyond its mortal bound, and reach a hand

To others and to others without end.

I saw the generations like a river

Flow down from age to age, and all the vast

Complex of human passion float and quiver—

A wondrous mirror where the Gods were glassed._

_And still through all these ages scarce a change

Has touched my mountain slopes or seaward curve,

And still the folk beneath the old laws range,

And from their ancient customs hardly swerve;

Still Love and Death, veiled figures, hand in hand,

Move o’er men’s heads, dread, irresistible,

To ope the portals of that other land

Where the great Voices sound and Visions dwell._

THE DRAMA OF LOVE

AND DEATH

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

Love and Death move through this world of ours like things

apart—underrunning it truly, and everywhere present, yet seeming to

belong to some other mode of existence. When Death comes, breaking into

the circle of our friends, words fail us, our mental machinery ceases to

operate, all our little stores of wit and wisdom, our maxims, our

mottoes, accumulated from daily experience, evaporate and are of no

avail. These things do not seem to touch or illuminate in any effective

way the strange vast Presence whose wings darken the world for us. And

with Love, though in an opposite sense, it is the same. Words are of no

use, all our philosophy fails—whether to account for the pain, or to

fortify against the glamour, or to describe the glory of the experience.

These figures, Love and Death, move through the world, like closest

friends indeed, never far separate, and together dominating it in a kind

of triumphant superiority; and yet like bitterest enemies, dogging each

other’s footsteps, undoing each other’s work, fighting for the bodies

and souls of mankind.

Is it possible that at length and after ages we may attain to liberate

ourselves from their overlordship—to dominate _them_ and make them our

ministers and attendants? Can we wrest them from their seeming tyranny

over the human race, and from their hostility to each other? Can we

persuade them to lay aside their disguise and appear to us for what they

no doubt are—even the angels and messengers of a new order of

existence?

It is a great and difficult enterprise. Yet it is one, I think, which we

of this generation cannot avoid. We can no longer turn our faces away

from Death, and make as if we did not perceive his presence or hear his

challenge. This age, which is learning to look the facts of Nature

steadily in the face, and see _through_ them, must also learn to face

this ultimate fact and look through it. And it will surely—and perhaps

only—be by allying ourselves to Love that we shall be able to do

so—that we shall succeed in our endeavor.

For after all it is not in the main on account of ourselves that we

cherish a grudge against the ‘common enemy’ and dispute his authority,

but for the sake of those we love. For ourselves we may be indifferent

or acquiescent; but somehow for those others, for those divine ones who

have taken our hearts into their keeping, we resent the idea that _they_

can perish. We refuse to entertain the thought. Love in some mysterious

way forbids the fear of death. Whether it be Siegfried who tramples the

flaming, circle underfoot, or the Prince of Heaven who breaks his way

through the enchanted thicket, or Orpheus who reaches his Eurydice even

in the jaws of hell, or Hercules who wrestles with the lord of the

underworld for Alcestis—the ancient instinct of mankind has declared in

no uncertain tone that in this last encounter Love must vanquish.

It is in the name, then, of one of these gods that we challenge the

other. And yet not without gratitude to both. For it is Azrael’s

invasion of our world, it is his challenge to _us_, that (perhaps more

than anything else) rivets our loyalty to each other. It is his frown

that wakes friendship in human souls and causes them to tighten the

bonds of mutual devotion. In some strange way these two, though seeming

enemies, play into each other’s hands; each holds the secret of the

other, and between them they conceal a kindred life and some common

intimate relation. We feel this in our inmost intuitions; we perceive it

in our daily survey of human affairs; and we find it illustrated (as I

shall presently point out) in general biology and the life-histories of

the most primitive cells. The theme, in fact, of the interplay of Love

and Death will run like a thread-motive through this book—not without

some illumination, as I would hope, cast by each upon the other, and by

both upon our human destiny.

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNINGS OF LOVE

As I have just suggested, the great human problems of Love and Death are

strangely and remarkably illustrated in the most primitive forms of

life; and I shall consequently make no apology for detaining the reader

for a few moments over modern investigations into the subjects of

cell-growth, reproduction and death. If this chapter is a little

technical and complex in places, still it may be worth while delaying

over it, and granting it some patient consideration, on account of the

curious light the study throws on the rest of the book and the general

questions therein discussed.

Love seems to be primarily (and perhaps ultimately) an interchange of

essences. The Protozoa—those earliest cells, the progenitors of the

whole animal and vegetable kingdom—grow by feeding on the minute

particles which they find in the fluid surrounding them. The growth

continues, till ultimately, reaching the limit of convenient size, a

cell divides into two or more portions; and so reproduces itself. The

descendant cells or portions so thrown off are simply continuations, by

division, of the life of the original or parent cell—so that it has not

unfrequently been said that, in a sense, these Protozoa are immortal,

since their life continues indefinitely (with branching but without

break) from generation to generation. This form of reproduction by

simple budding or division extends even up into the higher types of

life, where it is sometimes found side by side with the later sexual

form of reproduction, as in the case of so-called _parthenogenesis_

among insects. It is indeed a kind of virgin-birth; and is well

illustrated in the vegetable world by the budding of bulbs, or by the

fact that a twig torn from a shrub and placed in the ground will

commonly grow and continue the life of the parent plant; or in the lower

stages of the animal world, where, among many of the worms, insects,

sponges, &c., the life may similarly be continued by division, or by the

extrusion of a bud or an egg, without any sex-contact or sex-action

whatever.

This seems in fact to be the original and primitive form of generation;

and it obviously depends upon _growth_. Generation is the superfluity,

the ὕβρις, of growth, and connects itself in the first instance with the

satisfaction of hunger. First hunger, then growth, then reproduction by

division or budding. And this process may go on apparently for many

generations without change—in the case of certain Protozoa even to

hundreds of generations. But a time comes when the growth-power and

energy decay, and the vitality diminishes[1]—at any rate, as a rule.[2]

But then a variation occurs. Two cells unite, exchange fluids, and part

again. It is a new form of nourishment; it is the earliest form of Love.

It is a very intimate form of nourishment; for it appears that in

general the nuclei themselves of the two cells are shared and in part

exchanged. And the vitality so obtained gives the cells a new lease of

life. They are in fact regenerated. And each partner grows again

actively and reproduces itself by budding and division as before.

Sometimes the two uniting cells will remain conjoined; and the joint

cell will then generate buds, or in some cases enlarge to bursting

point, and so, perishing itself, break up into a numerous progeny.[3]

So far there seems to be but little differentiation between Hunger and

Love. Love is only a special hunger which leads cells to obtain

nourishment from other cells of the same species; and generation or

reproduction in these early stages, being an inevitable accompaniment of

growth, follows on the satisfaction of love just as it follows on the

satisfaction of hunger. Rolph’s words on the relation of these two

impulses (quoted by Geddes and Thompson) are very suggestive. He

says:—“Conjugation occurs when nutrition is diminished.... It is a

necessity for satisfaction, a growing hunger, which drives the animal to

engulf its neighbor, to ‘isophagy.’ The process of conjugation is only a

special form of nutrition, which occurs on a reduction of the nutritive

income, or an increase of the nutritive needs.”

And so far there is no distinction of sex. It is true there may be sex

in the sense of union or fusion between two individuals; but there is no

distinction of sex, in the sense of male and female. In the Protozoa

generally there is simple union or conjugation between cells, which, as

far as can be observed, are quite similar to each other. It is a union

between similars; and it leads to growth and reproduction. But both

union and reproduction at this early stage exist quite independently of

any distinctive sex-action, or any differentiation of individuals into

male and female.

At a later period, however, Sex comes in. It is obvious that for growth

(and reproduction) two things are necessary, which are in some degree

antagonistic to each other—on the one hand the pursuit and capture of

food, which means _activity_ and force, and on the other hand the

digestion and assimilation of the food, which means _quiescence_ and

passivity. And it seems that at a certain stage—in general, when

“animals” have already been formed by the conjunction of many protozoic

cells in co-operative colonies—this differentiation sets in, and some

individuals specialize towards activity and the chase, while others (of

the same species) specialize towards repose and assimilation. The two

sets of qualities are clearly only useful in combination with each

other, and yet, as I have said, they are to some degree contrary to each

other; and therefore it is quite natural that the two corresponding

groups of individuals should form two great branches in each race,

diverse yet united.

These two branches are the male and female—the active, energy-spending,

hungry, food-obtaining branch; and the sessile, non-active, assimilative

and reproductive branch. And by the division of labor consequent on the

formation of these two branches the whole race is benefited; but only of

course on condition that the diverse elements are reunited from time to

time. It is in the fusion of these elements that the real quality and

character of the race is restored; and it is by their fusion that

development and reproduction are secured.

In some of the Infusorians[4] there seems to be a beginning of

sex-differentiation, and fusion takes place between two individuals

slightly differing from each other; but as we have already seen, in

most of the Protozoa the union is a union of _similars_—that is, as

far as can at present be observed, though of course there is a great

probability that here also there is generally _some_ difference which

supplies the attraction and the value of union.[5]

It is in the _Metazoa_ generally, and those forms of life which consist

of co-operative _colonies_ of cells, that sex-differentiation into male

and female begins to decisively assert itself. Here—since it is

obviously impossible for all the cells of one individual to fuse with

all the cells of another—certain special cells are set apart in each

organism for the purpose of union or conjugation; and it seems quite

natural that in the course of time the differentiation spoken of above,

into male and female, should set in—each individual tending to become

decisively either masculine or feminine—both in the sex-cells or

sex-apparatus, and (though in a less marked degree) in the general

‘body’ and structure.

In the lower forms of life, generally, as among the amphibia, fishes,

molluscs, &c., the male and female sex-cells—the sperm and the germ—do

not conjugate within either of the parent bodies, but are expelled from

each, in order to meet and fuse in some surrounding medium, like water.

There the double cell, so formed, develops into the new individual. But

in higher forms the meeting takes place, and the first stages of

development ensue, _within_ one of the bodies. And, as one might expect,

this occurs within the body of the female. For the female, as we have

said, represents quiescence, growth, assimilation. The germ or ovum is

large compared with the spermatozoon; it is also sessile in habit. The

spermatozoon, on the other hand, is exceedingly active. And so it seems

natural that the latter should seek out the germ within the body of the

female. Just as, in general, the female animal remains impassive and

quiescent, and is sought out by the male, so the female germ remains at

home within the female body, and receives its visitor or visitors there.

And the whole apparatus of connection is symbolical of this relation.

The body of the female is the temple in which the sacred mystery of the

union or fusion of two individuals is completed, as a means to the birth

or creation of a new individual.

Yet though the female is thus privileged to be the receptacle and

sanctum of the life-giving power, it must not be thought that this

argues superiority of the female, as such, over the male. The process of

conjunction is sometimes spoken of as a fertilization merely, implying

the idea that the ovum or female element is the main thing, and that

_this_ only requires a slight impulse or stimulus from the male side for

its powers of development to be started and set in operation. But though

it is true that the ovum can in many cases of the lower forms of life be

started developing by the administration of a chemical solution or even

a mechanical needle-prick, this development does not seem to continue;

and modern investigation shows that in normal fecundation an absolute

equality reigns, as far as we can see, between the two contracting

parties and their contributions to the new being that has to be formed.

Nothing is more astounding than the results of these investigations; and

they not only show us that the protozoic cells (and sex-cells), instead

of being very simple in structure, are already extremely complex, and

that their changes in the act of fertilization or fusion are _strangely

elaborate and systematic_; but they suggest that though to us these

cells may represent the microscopic beginnings of life in its most

primitive stages, in reality they stand for the first visible results of

long antecedent operations, and indicate highly organized and, we may

say, intelligent forces at work within them.

The mere process by which a primitive cell divides and reproduces itself

has an air of demonic intelligence about it. Roughly, the process may be

described as follows. The nucleus appears to be the most important

portion of a cell. Certainly it is so as regards the supply of

hereditary and formative material—the surrounding protoplasm fulfilling

more of a nutritive and protective function. Within and through the

liquid of the nucleus there spreads an irregular network of a substance

which is (for a purely accidental reason) called _chromatin_. As long as

the nucleus is at rest, this network is fairly evenly distributed

through it; but the first oncoming of division is signalled by the

break-up of the chromatin into a limited and definite number of short,

threadlike bodies—to which the name _chromosomes_ has been given. These

_chromosomes_, after some curious evolutions, finally arrange themselves

in a line across the middle of the nucleus; and they are apparently

governed in this operation, and the whole splitting of the cell is

governed, by a minute, starlike and radiating centre (called

_centrosome_), which first appearing outside the nucleus and in the

general protoplasm of the cell, seems to play a dominant part in the

whole process. This _centrosome_, when the time comes for the

cell-division, itself divides in two, and the two starlike centres so

formed (which are to become _centrosomes_ of the two new cells), slowly

move to opposite ends or poles of the original cell—all the time, as

they do so, throwing out raylike threads or fibrils which connect them

somehow with the chromosomes and which seem to regulate the movements of

the latter, till, as described, the latter form themselves in a line

across the centre of the cell, transversely to the line joining the

poles. At this stage, then, we have a tiny, starlike centrosome at each

end of the cell, and a transverse line of chromosomes between. (Also,

during the process the wall or enclosing membrane of the nucleus has

disappeared and the general contents of cell and nucleus have become

undivided.) It is at this moment that the real division begins. The

chromosomes—of which it is said that there are always a definite and

invariable number for every species of plant or animal,[6] and which are

now generally supposed to contain the hereditary elements or

determinants of the future individual—these chromosomes have already

arranged themselves longitudinally and end-on to each other across the

middle of the cell. They now, apparently under the influence of the

radiating points at each pole, split longitudinally (as one splits a log

of wood)—so that each chromosome, dividing throughout its length,

contributes one half of itself to one pole and one half to the other.

The halves so formed separate, and approach their respective poles; and

at the same time the cell-wall constricting itself along the equatorial

line, or line of separation, soon divides the original cell into two.

Meanwhile the chromosomes in each new division group themselves (not

round but) near their respective poles or centrosomes, and a new nucleus

membrane forming, encloses each group, so that finally we have two cells

of exactly the same constitution as the original one, and with exactly

the same number and quality of chromosomes as the original.[7]

The whole process seems very strange and wonderful. No military

evolutions and formations, no complex and mystic dance of initiates in a

temple, with advances and retreats, and combinations and separations,

and exchanges of partners, could seem more fraught with intelligence.[8]

Yet this is what takes place among some of the very lowest forms of

life, on the division of a single cell into two. And it is exactly the

same, apparently, which takes place in the higher forms of life when the

single cell which is the result of the fusion together of the sperm-cell

and the germ-cell, divides and subdivides to form the ‘body’ of the

creature. As is well known, the joint cell divides first into two; then

each of the cells so formed divides into two, making four in all; then

each of these divides into two, making eight; then each into two again,

making 16, 32, 64, and so on—till they number the thousands, hundreds

of thousands, millions, which in effect build up and constitute the

body. And at each division the process is carried out with this amazing

care and exactness of partition described—so that every cell is verily

continuous and of the same nature with the original cell, and contains

the same nuclear elements, derived half from the father and half from

the mother. Yet in the process a differentiation has set in, so that in

the end each cell becomes so far modified as to be adapted for its

special position and function in the body—for the skin, mucous

membrane, blood corpuscles, brain, muscular tissue, and so forth.[9] It

is worth while looking carefully at the body of an animal, or one’s own

body, in order to realize what this means—to realize that the entire

creature, in all its form and feature, its coloring, marking, swiftness

of limb, complexity of brain, and so on, has provably been exhaled from

a single cell, _is_ indeed that original cell with its latent powers and

virtue made manifest; and to remember that that original cell was itself

the fusion of two parent cells, the male and the female.

A word, then, upon this matter of the fusion of the two parent cells in

one. Here, again, two very remarkable things appear. One refers to the

equality of the sexes; the other refers to the onesidedness (or

deficiency or imperfection) which seems to be the characteristic _and_

the motive power of the phenomenon of sex.

With regard to the first point, we saw that among the Protozoa

conjugation occurs for the most part between two individual cells which

are alike in size and (to all appearance) alike in constitution; and

this conjugation leads to reproduction. But when among the higher forms

sex begins to show, the conjugating cells—sperm-cell and germ-cell—are

generally unlike in size, and often in the higher animals extremely

unlike—as in the human _spermatozoon_ and _ovum_, of which the latter

is a thousand times the volume of the former;[10] and this has sometimes

led, as remarked before, to an exaggerated view of the preponderant

importance of one sex. But the curious fact seems to be that when the

spermatozoon of the human or higher animal penetrates the ovum, there is

a preliminary period before its nucleus actually combines with the

nucleus of the ovum, during which the nucleus rapidly absorbs

nourishment from the surrounding protoplasm, and _grows_—grows till it

becomes of _exactly the same size_ as the nucleus of the ovum. The

situation then is that there are two nuclei of the same size and both

charged with chromatin of the same general character, in close

proximity, and waiting to fuse with each other.

The product of that fusion is a new being; and as far as can at present

apparently be observed, the parts played by the two sexes in the process

are quite equal. There may be _difference_ of function but there is no

inequality. “Both male and female cells,” says Professor Rolleston,[11]

“prepare themselves for conjugation long before it takes place, and

neither of them can be said to be a more active agent in fertilization

than the other. Not ‘fertilization’ but ‘fusion’ is the keyword of the

process. The mystical conception, as old as Plato, of the male and

female as representing respectively the two halves of a complete being,

turns out to be no poetic metaphor. As regards the essential features of

reproduction, it is a literal fact.”

The second remarkable point has to do with the onesidedness of sexual

conjugation, and the complementary nature of the exchange involved. This

is truly noteworthy and interesting. It is evident that if the

sperm-cell and germ-cell simply coalesced, containing each the amount of

chromatin characteristic of the species—say sixteen chromosomes in the

case of the human being—the result would be a cell with double the

proper amount, _say thirty-two chromosomes_, i.e. _an amount belonging

to another species_. “What happens is that each of the reproductive

cells, male and female, prepares itself for conjugation _by getting rid

of half its_ chromosomes. Two divisions of the nucleus take place, _not_

as in the ordinary fashion of cell-division, when the chromosomes split

longitudinally, but in such a way that, in each division, four of the

sixteen chromosomes (making eight in all) are bodily expelled from the

nucleus and from the cell, when they either perish, or, in some cases,

appear to help in forming an envelope of nutritive matter round the

germ-cell. These divisions are called ‘maturation divisions,’ and until

they are accomplished fecundation is impossible.”[12] Thus the two

nuclei, having each their number of chromosomes reduced to half the

normal number (in this case to eight), are now ready to coalesce and so

form a new cell with the proper number belonging to the species (_i.e._

sixteen). This cell is the commencement of the new being, and, as

already described, it divides and re-divides, and the innumerable cells

so formed differentiate themselves into different tissues, until the

whole animal is built up.

Says Professor E. B. Wilson:—“The one fact of maturation that stands

out with perfect clearness and certainty amid all the controversies

surrounding it, is a reduction of the _number of chromosomes in the

ultimate germ [and sperm] cells_[13] to one half the number

characteristic of the somatic cells. It is equally clear that this

reduction is a preparation of the germ [and sperm] cells for their

subsequent union, and a means by which the number of chromosomes is held

constant in the species.”[14]

This extrusion or expulsion by each of the conjugating cells of half its

constituent elements is certainly very strange.[15] And it seems

strangely deliberate.[16] Various theories have been formed on the

subject, but at present there is apparently no satisfactory conclusion

as to what exactly takes place. Some think that in the one case certain

male elements are expelled, and in the other case certain female

elements; and anyhow it seems probable that a complementary action sets

in, by which each prepares itself to supply a different class of

elements from the other, thus rendering the conjunction more effectual.

Plato has been already quoted with regard to male and female being only

the two halves of a complete original being. He also says (in the speech

of Socrates in the _Banquet_) that the mother of Love was Poverty, and

that Love “possesses thus far his mother’s nature that he is ever the

companion of Want.” And it would appear that in the most primitive

grades of life the same is true, and that two cells combine or coalesce

in order to mutually supply some want or deficiency.

Anyhow, in the process just described two points stand out pretty clear:

first, the exact quality of the number of chromosomes contributed by

sperm-cell and germ-cell to the fertilized ovum—which seems to indicate

that the descendant being has an equal heredity from each

parent[17]—though of course it does not follow that both heredities

become equally prominent or manifest in the descendant body; and

secondly, that the same is true of all the cells in this new body—that

they each contain the potentialities of the joint cell from which they

sprang, and therefore the potentialities of both parents.

These amazing conclusions concerning the origins of life and

reproduction—here, of course, very briefly and imperfectly

presented—cannot but give us pause. Contemplating the evolutions and

affinities of these infinitely numerous but infinitely small organisms

which build up our visible selves, and the strange intelligence which

seems to pervade their movements, the mind reels—somewhat as it does in

contemplating the evolutions and affinities of the unimaginable

stars.[18] We seem, certainly, to trace the same laws or operations in

these minutest regions as we trace in our own corporeal and mental

relations. Cells attract each other just as human beings do; and the

attraction seems to depend, to a certain degree, on difference. The male

spermatozoon seeks the female ovum, just as the male animal, as a rule,

seeks and pursues the female. Primitive cells divide and redivide and

differentiate themselves, building up the animal body, just in the same

way as primitive thoughts and emotions divide and redivide and

differentiate themselves, building up the human mind. But though we thus

see processes with which we are familiar repeated in infinitesimal

miniature, we seem to be no nearer than before to any ‘explanation’ of

them, and we seem to see no promise of any explanation. We merely obtain

a larger perspective, and a suggestion that the universal order is of

the same character throughout—with a suspicion perhaps that the

explanation of these processes does not lie in any concatenation of the

things themselves, but in some other plane of being of which these

concatenations are an allegory or symbolic expression. In portions of

the following chapters I shall trace more in detail the resemblance or

parallelism between these processes among the Protozoa and some of our

own experiences in the great matters of Life and Love and Death.[19]

CHAPTER III

LOVE AS AN ART

The astounding revelation of the first great love is a thing which the

youthful human being can hardly be prepared for, since indeed it cannot

very well be described in advance, or put into terms of reasonable and

well-conducted words. To feel—for instance—one’s whole internal

economy in process of being melted out and removed to a distance, as it

were into the keeping of some one else, is in itself a strange

physiological or psychological experience—and one difficult to record

in properly scientific terms! To lose consciousness never for a moment

of the painful void so created—a void and a hunger which permeates all

the arteries and organs, and every cranny of the body and the mind, and

which seems to rob the organism of its strength, sometimes even to

threaten it with ruin; to forego all interest in life, except in one

thing—and that thing a person; to be aware, on the other hand, with

strange elation and joy, that this new person or presence is infusing

itself into one’s most intimate being—pervading all the channels, with

promise (at least) of marriage and new life to every minutest cell, and

causing wonderful upheavals and transformations in tissue and fluids; to

find in the mind all objects of perception to be changed and different

from what they were before; and to be dimly conscious that the reason

why they are so is because the background and constitution of the

perceiving mind is itself changed—that, as it were, there is another

person beholding them as well as oneself—all this defies description in

words, or any possibility of exact statement beforehand; and yet the

actual fact when it arrives is overwhelming in solid force and reality.

If, besides, to the insurgence of these strange emotions we add—in the

earliest stages of love at least—their bewildering fluctuation, from

the deeps of vain longing and desire to the confident and ecstatic

heights of expectation or fulfilment—the very joys of heaven and pangs

of hell in swift and tantalizing alternation—the whole new experience

is so extraordinary, so unrelated to ordinary work-a-day life, that to

recite it is often only to raise a smile of dismissal of the subject—as

it were into the land of dreams.

And yet, as we have indicated, the thing, whatever it is, is certainly

by no means insubstantial and unreal. Nothing seems indeed more certain

than that in this strange revolution in the relations of two people to

each other—called “falling in love”—and behind all the illusions

connected with it, _something is happening_, something very real, very

important. The falling-in-love may be reciprocal, or it may be onesided;

it may be successful, or it may be unsuccessful; it may be only a

surface indication of other and very different events; but anyhow, deep

down in the sub-conscious world, _something_ is happening. It may be

that two unseen and only dimly suspected existences are becoming really

and permanently united; it may be that for a certain period, or (what

perhaps comes to the same thing) that to a certain _depth_, they are

transfusing and profoundly modifying each other; it may be that the

mingling of elements and the transformation is taking place almost

entirely in one person, and only to a slight degree or hardly at all in

the other; yet in all these cases—beneath the illusions, the

misapprehensions, the mirage and the _maya_, the surface satisfactions

and the internal disappointments—something very real is happening, an

important growth and evolution is taking place.

To understand this phenomenon in some slight degree, to have some

inkling of the points of the compass by which to steer over this

exceedingly troubled sea, is, one might say, indispensable for every

youthful human creature; but alas! the instruction is not provided—for

indeed, as things are to-day, the adult and the mature are themselves

without knowledge, and their eyes without speculation on the subject.

Treatises on the Art of Love truly exist—and some (for the field they

cover) very good ones, like the _Ars Amatoria_ of Ovid or the

_Kama-sutra_ of Vatsayana; but they are concerned mainly or wholly with

the details and technicalities of the subject—with the conduct of

intrigues and amours, with times and seasons, positions and

preparations, unguents and influences. It is like instructions given to

a boatman on the minutiæ of his craft—how to contend with wind and

wave, how to use sail and oar, to steer, to tack, to luff to a breaker,

and so forth; all very good and necessary in their way, but who is there

to point us our course over the great Ocean, and the stars by which to

direct it? The later works on this great subject—though not despising

the more elementary aspects—will no doubt have to proceed much farther,

into the deep realms of psychology, biological science, and ultimately

of religion.[20]

As we have just said, Love is concerned with growth and evolution. It

is—though as yet hardly acknowledged in that connection—a root-factor

of ordinary human growth; for in so far as it is a hunger of the

individual, the satisfaction of that hunger is necessary for individual

growth—necessary (in its various forms) for physical, mental and

spiritual nourishment, for health, mental energy, large affectional

capacity, and so forth. And it is—though this too is not sufficiently

acknowledged—a root-factor of the Evolution process. For in so far as

it represents and gives rise to the union of two beings in a new form,

it plainly represents a step in Evolution, and plainly suggests that the

direction of that step will somehow depend upon the character and

quality of the love concerned. Thus the importance, the necessity, of

the study of the art of love is forced on our attention. It has to be no

longer a subterranean, unrecognized, and even rather disreputable cult,

but an openly acknowledged and honorable department of human life,

leading in its due time to broad and commonsense instructions and

initiations for the young.

* * * * *

Casting a glance back at the love-affairs of the Protozoa, as briefly

described in the preceding chapter, there certainly seems to be a kind

of naive charm about them. The simple and wholehearted way in which on

occasions they fuse with one another, losing or merging completely their

own separate individualities in the process; or again part from each

other after having exchanged essences in a kind of affectionate

cannibalism; the obvious and unconcealed relation between love and

hunger; the first beginnings of generation; and the matter-of-fact

manner in which one person, when he finds it convenient, divides in half

and becomes two persons, and after a time perhaps divides again and

becomes four persons, and again and again until he is many thousands or

millions—and yet it is impossible to decide (and he himself probably is

not quite clear) as to whether he is still one person or different

persons—all this cannot fail to excite our admiration and respect, nor

to give us, also, considerable food for thought.

One of the first things to strike us, and to suggest an application to

human life, is the importance of Love, among these little creatures, for

the health of the individual. The authors of _The Evolution of Sex_ say

in one passage (p. 178): “Without it [conjugation], the Protozoa, which

some have called ‘immortal,’ die a natural death. Conjugation is the

necessary condition of their eternal youth and immortality. Even at this

low level, only through the fire of love can the phœnix of the species

renew its youth.” And again, in another passage (p. 277), referring to

the conclusions of Maupas: “Already we have noted this important result,

that conjugation is essential to the health of the species.” Thus it

appears that, in these primitive stages, fusion more or less complete,

or interchange of essences, leads to Regeneration and renewal of

vitality—and this long before the distinct phenomena of sex appear. It

leads to Regeneration first, and so collaterally, and at a later period,

to Generation.

Somehow—though it is not quite clear how—this view of the importance

of love to personal health has been sadly obscured in later and

Christian times. The dominant Christian attitude converted love, from

being an expression and activity of the deepest human life and joy, into

being simply a vulgar necessity for the propagation of the species. A

violent effort was made to wrench apart the spiritual and corporeal

aspects of it. The one aspect was belauded, the other condemned. The

first was relegated to heaven, the second was given its _congé_ to

another place. Corporeal intercourse and the propagation of the race

were vile necessities. True affection dwelt in the skies and disdained

all earthly contacts. And yet all this was a vain effort to separate

what could not be separated. It was like trying to take the pigments out

of a picture; to call the picture “good,” but the stuff it was painted

with “bad.”

And so, owing to this denial, owing to this non-recognition of love (in

all its aspects) as necessary to personal health, thousands and

thousands of men and women through the centuries—some “for the kingdom

of heaven’s sake,” and some for the sake of the conventions of

society—have allowed their lives to be maimed and blighted, their

health and personal well-being ruined. The deep well-spring and source

of human activity and vitality has been desecrated and choked with

rubbish. That some sort of purpose, in the evolution of humanity, may

have been fulfilled by this strange negation, it would be idle to deny;

indeed some such purpose—in view of the wide prevalence of the

negation, and its long continuance during the civilization period—seems

probable. But this does not in any way controvert the fact that it has

in its time caused a disastrous crippling of human health and vitality.

Human progress takes place, no doubt, in sections—one foot forward at a

time, so to speak; but this does not mean that the other foot can be

permanently left in the rear. On the contrary, it means its all the more

decided advance when its turn arrives.

To-day we seem at the outset of a new era, and preparing in some way for

the rehabilitation of the Pagan conception of the world. The negative

Christian dispensation is rapidly approaching its close; the necessity

of love in its various forms, as part and parcel of a healthy life, is

compelling our attention. No one is so poor a physiognomist as not to

recognize the health-giving effects of successful courtship—the

heightened color, the brilliant eye, the elastic step; the active brain,

the prompt reflexes, the glad outlook on the world. Indeed the effect

upon all the tissues—their nourishment, growth, improvement in tone,

and so forth—is extraordinary; and yet—remembering what has been said

about Love and Hunger—quite natural. For, after all, we have seen that

every cell in the body is a _replica_ of the original cell from which it

sprang; and so the love which reaches one probably in some way reaches

all. And there is probably not only union and exchange (in actual

intercourse) between two special sex-cells; but there is also (_all

through_ the period of being “in love”) an etheric union and exchange

going on between the body-cells generally on each side; and a

nourishment of each other by the interchange of finest and subtlest

elements.

That this mutual exchange and nutrition may take place between the

general cells of two bodies is made all the more probable from the

experiments already alluded to with regard to chemical

fertilization—whereby it has been shown that some ova or egg-cells may

be started on a process of subdivision and growth by treatment with

certain chemicals, such as weak solutions of strychnine, or common salt,

apart from any fertilization by a spermatozoon.[21] Now since—when the

body is once fairly formed—its further growth and sustenance is

maintained by continued division and subdivision of the body-cells, this

stimulus to growth may easily (we may suppose) be supplied by the subtle

radiations and reactions from another body within whose sphere of

influence it comes—radiations and reactions sufficiently subtle to pass

through the tissues to the various cells, and of course sufficiently

characteristic and individual to be in some cases, as we have supposed,

highly vitalizing and stimulating—though in other cases of course they

may be poisonous and harmful. Of course, also, it is only love that

supplies and is the vitalizing relation.

So intense, at times, is this vitalizing force, and so ardent the need

of it, that the whole body leaps and throbs in pain. Plato, in his

poetic way, explains the scorching sensation in all the skin and tissues

by feigning that it is caused by the wing-feathers of the soul sprouting

everywhere (_i.e._ according to our view, in every little cell).

Nevertheless, his words on the subject are singularly pregnant with

meaning. For he says (in the _Phædrus_): “Whenever indeed by gazing on

the beauty of the beloved object, and _receiving from that beauty

particles which fall and flow in upon it_ (and which are therefore

called ‘desire’), the soul is watered and warmed, it is relieved from

its pain, and is glad; but as soon as it is parted from its love, and

for lack of that moisture is parched, the mouths of the outlets by which

the feathers start become so closed up by drought, that they obstruct

the shooting germs; and the germs being thus confined underneath, in

company of the desire which has been infused, leap like throbbing

arteries, and prick each at the outlet which is closed against it; so

that the soul, being stung all over, is frantic with pain.”[22]

This fusion of complementaries, then, which is the characteristic of

fertilization, takes place between the lovers—not only in respect of

their sex-cells, but probably also to a considerable degree in respect

of their body-cells. And though with any mortal lovers the complementary

nature of the fusion can hardly be so complete as to restore the full

glory of the race-life, yet very near to that point it sometimes comes,

filling them with mad and immortal-seeming ecstasies, and excusing them

indeed for seriously thinking that the wings of their souls have begun

to grow! In lesser degree this complementary fusion and exchange is

doubtless the explanation (or one explanation) of that very noticeable

point—the strange way in which lovers after some years come to resemble

each other—in form and feature, in facial expression, tone of voice,

carriage of body, handwriting, and all sorts of minute points.

* * * * *

I suppose at this point it will be necessary to explain that the

recognition of love (in all its aspects) as a general condition of human

health, does not mean a recommendation of wild indulgence in any and

every passion—necessary, because in these cases it seems to be

generally assumed that the proposer of a very simple thesis means a very

great deal more than he says! It is here that the necessity of education

comes in; for hitherto public instruction and discussion in these

matters have been so defective that folk have been unable to talk about

them except in a hysterical way—hysterical on the one side or the

other. The _positive_ value of love, its positive cultivation as a

gracious, superb, and necessary part of our lives has hardly (at least

in the Anglo-Saxon world) entered into people’s minds. To teach young

things to love, and how to love, to actually instruct and encourage them

in the art, has seemed something wicked and unspeakable. Says Havelock

Ellis:[23] “Whether or not Christianity is to be held responsible, it

cannot be doubted that throughout Christendom there has been a

lamentable failure to recognize the supreme importance, not only

erotically but morally, of the art of love. Even in the great revival of

sexual enlightenment now taking place around us there is rarely even the

faintest recognition that in sexual enlightenment the one thing

essentially necessary is a knowledge of the art of love. For the most

part sexual instruction, as at present understood, is purely negative, a

mere string of thou-shalt-nots. If that failure were due to the

conscious and deliberate recognition that while the art of love must be

based on physiological and psychological knowledge, it is far too subtle

too complex, too personal, to be formulated in lectures and manuals, it

would be reasonable and sound. But it seems to rest entirely on

ignorance, indifference, or worse.”

It is, I think, not unfair to suppose that it is this indifference or

vulgar Philistinism which is largely responsible for the sordid

commercialism of the good people of the last century. Finding the lute

and the lyre snatched from their hands they were fain to turn to a

greater activity with the muck-rake.

* * * * *

Love is a complex of human relations—physical, mental, emotional,

spiritual, and so forth—all more or less necessary. And though seldom

realized complete, it is felt, and feels itself, to be imperfect without

some representation of every side. To limit it to the expression of one

particular aspect would be totally inadequate, if not absurd and

impossible. A merely physical love, for instance, on the sexual plane,

is an absurdity, a dead letter—the enjoyment and fruition of the

physical depending so much on the _feeling_ expressed, that without the

latter there is next to no satisfaction. At best there is merely a

negative pleasure, a relief, arising from the solution of a previous

state of corporeal tension. And in such cases intercourse is easily

followed by depression and disappointment. For if there is not enough of

the more subtle and durable elements in love, to remain after the

physical has been satisfied, and to hold the two parties close together,

why, the last state may well be worse than the first!

But equally absurd is any attempt to limit, for instance, to the mental

plane, and to make love a matter of affectionate letter-writing merely,

or of concordant views on political economy; or again, to confine it to

the emotional plane, and the region of more or less sloppy sentiment; or

to the spiritual, with a somewhat lofty contempt of the material—in

which case it tends, as hinted before, to become too like trying to

paint a picture without the use of pigments. All the phases are

necessary, or at least desirable—even if, as already said, a quite

complete and all-round relation is seldom realized. The physical is

desirable, for many very obvious reasons—including corporeal needs and

health, and perhaps especially because it acts in the way of removal of

barriers, and _so opens the path_ to other intimacies. The mental is

desirable, to give form and outline to the relation; the emotional, to

provide the something to be expressed; and the spiritual to give

permanence and absolute solidity to the whole structure.

It is probably on account of this complex nature that for any big and

permanent relationship of this kind there has to be a rather slow and

gradual culmination. All the various elements have to be hunted up and

brought into line. Like all great ideas love has its two sides—its

instantaneous inner side, and its complex outer side of innumerable

detail. In _consciousness_ it tends to appear in a flash—simple,

unique, and unchangeable; but in _experience_ it has to be worked out

with much labor. _All the elements have to come into operation_, and to

contribute their respective quota to the total result. If we remember

what happens when the spermatozoon and the ovum coalesce (see ch. ii. p.

19)—the extraordinary changes and disturbances which are induced in the

chromatin elements of both nuclei, the fusion of the nuclei, and the

ultimate ranging of the chromosomes in a line (for the formation of the

new being) in such a way that every element is represented and

contributes its share to the process—we cannot but be struck by the

strange similarity to our own inner experience: how love searches the

heart, drags every element of the inner nature forward from its

lurking-place, gives it definition and shape, and somehow insists on it

being represented, and, so to speak, toeing the line. We shall return to

this point later. Here I only wish to insist on the complexity of the

process, in order to show that for any big relationship plenty of time

has to be allowed. Whichever side of the nature—mental, emotional,

physical, and so forth—may have happened to take the lead, it must not

and cannot monopolize the affair. It must drag the other sides in and

give them their place. And this means time, and temporary bewilderment

and confusion. It is curious how ‘falling in love’ has this very

effect—how it paralyzes for a time—inhibiting the mental part and even

the physical; how the smart talker becomes a dumb ass, and the man about

town a modest fool, and the person who always does the right thing seems

compelled to do everything wrong—as if a confusion were being created

in the mind, analogous to that which we have observed in the cells. When

we add to these considerations the extraordinary differences between

persons, and between the proportions in which the elements of their

characters are mixed, it is obvious how extremely complex the conditions

of any one decent love-relation must be, and what tact and patience in

the handling it may require.

The ignorance, therefore, which causes a young man, husband or lover, to

think that the hurried completion of the sexual act is at once the

initiation and the fulfilment of love, is fatal enough. It marks more

often the end than the beginning of the affair. For, contrariwise, time

and plenty of time has to be given in order to allow the central

radiation in each case to have its perfect work. Is it too fanciful to

suppose that the _centrosome_, which makes its appearance in the

protozoön on its approach to conjunction, and which seems to rule the

rearrangement of the chromatin elements within it, is the analogue of

the radiating force in human courtship which so strangely sifts out and

remoulds the elements of the lover’s personality? Does the magic of the

centrosome correspond in some sense to the glamour, so well known in

human affairs? And do they both proceed from some deep-hidden,

profoundly important manifestation of the life, the energy, the divinity

if you will, of the Race?

How strange is this matter of the glamour, and its decisiveness in

awakening love by its presence, or leaving it cold by absence! Here is a

story of a woman who, dreadfully disfigured in countenance by an

accident in the hunting-field, called her _fiancé_ to her, and nobly

offered him his freedom; and he ... accepted it! Accepted it, because,

quite really and truly, the destruction of her physical beauty had for

him shattered the Vision and the divinity. And here is another similar

story where, contrariwise, the man immediately confirmed his love and

devotion—because for _him_ the glory around her was more illumined by

her nobility of feeling than it could be darkened by her bodily defect.

Such glamour, working away in the hidden caverns of being, may at last,

like Bruno’s “fabro vulcano,” weld two souls into one, and bring to

light a real, a profound, and perhaps eternal union. It is after all

that inner union which is the real thing; which gives all its joys to

intercourse, and penetrating down into the world of sense, redeems that

world into a thing of glory and beauty. For the complete action of that

creative and organizing force plentiful time must be given; and the two

lovers must possess their souls in patience till it has had its full and

perfect work. Ovid in his _Ars Amatoria_ has many lines on this subject.

“Let the youth,” he says, “with tardy passion burn, like a damp torch”

... _“Non est Veneris properanda voluptas_” ... _“Quod datum ex facili

longum male nutrit amorem_” (Love easily granted may not long endure),

and so forth. And though these passages no doubt refer mainly to what

may be called the practical conduct of amours, yet they have also a very

pointed application to the more important aspects of the grand passion.

A long foreground of approach, time and tact, diffusion of magnetism,

mergence in one another, suffering, and even pain—all these must be

expected and allowed for—though the best after all, in this as in other

things, is often the unexpected and the unprepared.

And if the man has to allow time for all the elements of his nature

to come forward and take their part in the great mystery, all the

more is it true that he has to give the woman time for the fulfilling

of _her_ part. For in general it may be said (though of course with

exceptions) that love culminates more slowly in women than in men.

Men concentrate obviously on the definite part they have to play; but

in women love is more diffused and takes longer to reach the point

where it becomes an inspired and creative frenzy of the whole being.

Caresses, tendernesses, provocation, sacrifices, and a thousand

indirect influences have to gradually conspire to the working out of

this result; and not infrequently the situation so arising demands

great self-control on the part of the man. Yet these things are worth

while. “The real marriage,” says some one, “takes place when from their

intense love there comes to birth another soul—apart from each, and

invisible, yet joining them together, one hand ahold of each—a radiant

thing born of the sun and stars, which though tender and fragile at

first, grows just like a bodily child, and leads them on, and dances

with them.”

They are worth while, all these labors and troubles, and delays and

sacrifices, if only out of them can be forged a fair and infrangible

union. As in all the arts, so in the greatest of the arts, no lasting

result can be attained, without such labor. Nor indeed without some

degree of pain and suffering. Young folk and inexperienced may think it

is not so. They may think that by a lucky stroke and practically without

effort a man may write a “Blessed Damozel” or carve in marble a “Greek

Slave”; but all experience points differently, and shows that directly

or indirectly to such works have gone infinite labor and patience. And

so to the conceiving and shaping of a perfect alliance between a man and

a woman must always go much of suffering—for it is by suffering that

the souls of human beings are brought into form and carved to fitness

for each other.

Is it seriously—when one comes to think of it—possible to imagine love

without pain? Figure to yourself, O man, a courtship absolutely

undenied, from the first accepted, even encouraged, with complaisantly

unresisting bride, smiling parents, fair-weather prospects, and cash

unlimited! How awfully dull! Does not the stoutest heart quail at the

suggestion? Or if such a mating might be deemed pleasant as far as its

accessories and conditions were concerned, could it yet be termed Love?

For Love, if worth anything, seems to _demand_ pain and strain in order

to prove itself, and is not satisfied with an easy attainment. How

indeed should one know the great heights except by the rocks and

escarpments? And pain often in some strange way seems to be the measure

of love—the measure by which we are assured that love is true and real;

and so (which is one of the mysteries) it becomes transformed into a

great joy. Yes, if men could only understand, here is one of the most

precious of the mysteries, and the solving of a great riddle.

But that the course of true love does generally not run smooth is

understood, more or less, by every one. And it is woman’s strange and

imperious instinct—even though at considerable suffering to herself—to

see that it _doesn’t_ run smooth. Ellis practically bases[24] the whole

of the evolution of modesty on this instinct—reaching far down in the

animal kingdom—by which the female constantly throws difficulties and

obstacles in the way of courtship (by her coynesses, contrarieties,

changeable moods, and so forth); thus calling out in the male all his

ingenuity, his impetuosity, his energy, in overcoming them; rousing

dormant elements of his nature; delaying consummation and giving time

for his character and all his qualities to concentrate; and indirectly

having a like effect upon herself. So that ultimately by this method a

maximum of passion and agitation is produced, and in the case of the

human being love penetrates to the very deeps and hidden caverns of the

soul. Such is the genesis of Modesty—not by any means Nature’s _denial_

of love, but rather the crafty old dame’s method of rendering love, by

temporary obstacles, all the more insurgent and irresistible—her method

of making it less superficial, of deepening the channels and rendering

them more profound.

Practically, and as a matter of policy, a too easy consent to another’s

love is a mistake. The barb only sticks when the bait is withdrawn.

Ovid, it will be remembered, advises that “the lover should be admitted

by the _window_, even when the door is quite accessible, and really more

convenient”;[25] and most girls (though they have not read Ovid) know

instinctively that this is the right policy! Nothing is so hateful to a

real lover as an easy, accommodating, altruistic affection—thoroughly

Christian in sentiment, and with no more shape of its own than a pillow!

Romance flies at the mere mention of Christian altruism; and the essence

of love is romance.

Hence not only technical obstacles, but essential differences are

necessary to the growth of the passion. Differences of age, differences

of sex, differences of class, temperament, hereditary strain, learning,

accomplishment, and so forth—if not _too_ great—are all necessary and

valuable. They all mean romance, and contribute to that exchange of

essences which we saw was the primitive protozoic law. It is quite

probable that the abiding romance between the sexes—so much greater as

a rule than that between two of like sex—is due to the fact that the

man and the woman never really understand each other; each to the other

is a figure in cloudland, sometimes truly divine, sometimes alas! quite

the reverse; but never clear and obvious in outline, as a simple mortal

may be expected to be.

But to return to the subject of pain and suffering. There is something

more in their work than merely to reveal to the lover the extent or the

depth of his own love. They have something surely to do with the inner

realities of the affair, with the moulding or hammering or welding

process whereby union is effected and, in some sense, a new being

created. It seems as if when two naked souls approach, or come anywhere

near contact with each other, the one inevitably burns or scorches the

other. The intense chemistry of the psychic elements produces something

like an actual flame. A fresh combination is entered into, profound

transformations are effected, strange forces liberated, and a new

personality perhaps created; and the accomplishment and evidence of the

whole process is by no means only joy, but agony also, even as

childbirth is.

All one can reasonably do is to endure. It is no good _making a fuss_.

In affairs of the heart what we call suffering corresponds to what we

call labor or effort in affairs of the body. When you put your shoulder

to the cart-wheel you feel the pain and pressure of the effort, but that

assures you that you are exercising a force, that something is being

done; so suffering of the heart assures you that something is being done

in that other and less tangible world. To scold and scowl and blame your

loved one is the stupidest thing you can do. And worse than stupid, it

is useless. For it can only alienate. Probably that other one is

suffering as well as you—possibly more than you, possibly a good deal

less. What does it matter? The suffering is there and must be borne; the

work, whatever it is, is being done; the transformation is being

effected. Do you want your beloved to suffer instead of you, or simply

because you are suffering? Or is it Pity you desire rather than Love.

On the other hand, these things borne in silence have, I believe, an

extraordinary effect. They pull people to you by quite invisible cords.

As I have said, the fact of heart-strain and tension shows that there is

a pressure or pull being exerted somewhere. Though the cord be

invisible, there is someone at the other end (though not perhaps quite

the one you supposed) who responds.

Words anyhow, in matters of love, are rather foolish; they are worse

than foolish, they are useless; and again they are worse than useless,

for they are misleading. Love is an art. “It must be revealed by

_acts_,” says a Swiss writer, “and not _betrayed_ by words.” And

Havelock Ellis, speaking further of the mistake of relying on

declarations and asservations, says:[26] “This is scarcely realized by

those ill-advised lovers who consider that the first step in

courtship—and perhaps even the whole of courtship—is for a man to ask

a woman to be his wife. That is so far from being the case that it

constantly happens that the premature exhibition of so large a demand at

once and forever damns all the wooer’s chances.” And in another passage

he says:[27] “Love’s requests cannot be made in words, nor truthfully

answered in words: a fine divination is still needed as long as love

lasts.”

Love is an art. As no mere talk can convey the meaning of a piece of

music or a beautiful poem, so no verbal declaration can come anywhere

near expressing what the lover wants to say. And for one very good and

sufficient reason (among others)—namely, that he does not know himself!

Under these circumstances to say anything is almost certainly to say

something misleading or false. And the decent lover knows this and holds

his tongue. To talk about your devotion is to kill it—moreover, it is

to render it banal and suspect in the eyes of your beloved.

Nevertheless though he cannot describe or explain what he wants to say,

the lover can _feel_ it—is feeling it all the time; and this feeling,

like other feelings, he can express by indirections—by symbols, by

actions, by the alphabet of deed and gesture, and all the hieroglyphics

of Life and Art. Like the animals and the angels and all the blessed

creatures who don’t _talk_, he can communicate in the ancient, primeval,

universal language of all creation, in the language which is itself

creation.

CHAPTER IV

ITS ULTIMATE MEANINGS

“To talk about your devotion is to kill it.” Perhaps one ought even to

say that to talk at all is to kill it! One often thinks what divine and

beautiful creatures—men and women—there are all around, how loving and

lovable, how gracious in their charm, how grand in their destiny!—if

indeed they could only be persuaded to remain within that magic circle

of silence. And then alas! one of these divinities begins to talk—and

it is like the fair woman in the fable, out of whose mouth, whenever she

opened it, there jumped a _mouse_! The shock is almost more than one can

bear. Not that the shock proceeds from the ignorance displayed—for the

animals and even the angels are deliciously ignorant—but from the

revelations which speech unconsciously makes of certain states of the

soul—from the strange _falsity_ which is too often heard in the words,

and in the very tones of the voice.

But Love burns this falsity away. That is why love—even rude and

rampant and outrageous love—does more for the moralizing of poor

humanity than a hundred thousand Sunday schools. It cleans the little

human soul from the clustered lies in which it has nested itself—from

the petty conceits and deceits and cowardices and covert meannesses—and

all the things that fly from the tip of the tongue directly the mouth

opens. It burns and cleans them away, and leaves the lover

speechless—but approximately honest!

Love is an art, and the greatest of the Arts—and the truth of it cannot

be said in words; that is, in any direct use of words. You may write a

sonnet, of course, to your mistress’s eyebrow; but that is work, that is

doing something; it is or is trying to be, a work of Art—and anyhow

your mistress is not obliged to read it! Or you may take a more decisive

line to express your feelings—by slaying your rival, for instance, with

a sword. That is allowable. But to bore the lady with protestations, and

to demand definite replies (that is, to tell lies yourself, and to

compel her to tell lies), is both foolish and wicked.

The expression of Love is a great art, and it needs man’s highest

ingenuity and capacity to become skilled in it—but in the public mind

it is an art utterly neglected and despised, and it is only by a very

few (and those not always the most ‘respectable’) that it is really

cultivated. It is a great art, for the same reason that the expression

of Beauty is a great art—for the reason that Love itself (like Beauty)

belongs to another plane of existence than the plane of ordinary life

and speech.

Speech is man’s great prerogative, which differentiates him from the

other creatures, and of which he is, especially during the Civilization

period, so proud. The animals do not use it, because they have not

arrived at the need of it; the angels do not use it, because they

have passed beyond the need. It belongs to the second stage of human

consciousness, that which is founded on self-consciousness—on the

rooted consciousness of the self as something solitary, apart from

others, even antagonistic to them, the centre (strange contradiction

in terms!) even among millions of other centres, to which everything

has to be referred. The whole of ordinary speech proceeds, and has

proceeded, from this kind of self-consciousness—is generated from it,

describes it, analyzes it, pictures it forth and expresses it—and

in the upshot is just as muddled and illusive and unsatisfactory

as the thing it proceeds from. And _Love_, which is _not_ founded

on that kind of self-consciousness—which is in fact the denial of

self-centration—has no use for it. Love can only say what it wants by

the language of life, action, song, sacrifice, ravishment, death, and

the great panorama of creation.

Self-consciousness is fatal to love. The self-conscious lover never

‘arrives.’ The woman looks at him—and then she looks at something more

interesting. And so too the whole modern period of commercial

civilization and Christianity has been fatal to love; for both these

great movements have concentrated the thoughts of men on their own

individual salvation—Christianity on the salvation of their souls, and

commercialism on the salvation of their money-bags. They have bred the

self-regarding consciousness in the highest degree; and so—though they

may have had their uses and their parts to play in the history of

mankind, they have been fatal to the communal spirit in society, and

they have been fatal to the glad expression of the soul in private life.

Self-consciousness is fatal to love, which is the true expression of the

soul. And it is curious how (for some occult reason) the whole treatment

of the subject in our modern world drives it along this painful

mirror-lined ravine—how the child is brought up in ignorance and

darkness, amid averted faces and frowns, and always the thought of self

and its own wickedness is thrust upon it, and never the good and the

beauty of the loved one; how the same attitude continues into years of

maturity; how somehow self-forgetting heroisms for the sake of love are

made difficult in modern life; how even the act of intercourse itself,

instead of taking place in the open air—in touch with the great and

abounding life of Nature—is generally consummated in closed and stuffy

rooms, the symbols of mental darkness and morbidity, and the

breeding-ground of the pettier elements of human nature.[28]

We have said that for any lasting alliance, or really big and

satisfactory love-affair, plenty of _time_ should be given. Perhaps

it is a good rule (if any rule in such matters can be good) never to

act until one is practically compelled by one’s feelings to do so. At

any rate, the opposite policy—that of letting off steam, or giving

expression to one’s sentiments, at the slightest pressure—is an obvious

mistake. It gives no chance for the depths to be stirred, or the big

forces to come into play. Some degree, too, of self-repression and

holding back on the part of the man gives time, as we have said, for

the woman’s love-feelings to unfold and define themselves. But there

is a limit here, and even sympathy and consideration are not always in

place with love. There is something bigger—titanic, elemental—which

must also have its way. And, after all, Force (if only appropriately

used) is the greatest of compliments. I think every woman, in her heart

of hearts, _wishes_ to be ravished; but naturally it must be by the

right man. This is the compliment which is the most grateful of all to

receive, because it is most sincere; and this is the compliment which

is the most difficult of all to pay—because nothing but the finest

instinct can decide when it is appropriate; and if by chance it is

inappropriate the cause is _ipso facto_ ruined.

Nature prizes strength and power; and so likewise does love, which moves

in the heart of Nature and shares her secrets. To regard Love as a kind

of refined and delicate altruism is, as we have already hinted,

drivelling nonsense. To the lover in general violence is more endurable

than indifference; and many lovers are of such temperament that blows

and kicks (actual or metaphorical) stimulate and increase their ardor.

Even Ovid—who must have been something of a gay dog in his

day—says,"_non nisi læsus amo_.” There is a feeling that at all costs

one must come to close quarters with the beloved—if not in the mimic

battles of sex, then in quite serious and hostile encounters. To reach

the other one somehow, to leave one’s mark, one’s impress on the

beloved—or _vice versa_ to _be_ reached and to _feel_ the impress—is a

necessity. I sometimes think that this is the explanation of those

strange cases in which a man, mad with love, and unable to satisfy his

passion, _kills_ the girl he loves. I don’t think it is hypothetical

jealousy of a possible other lover. I think it is something much more

direct than that—the blind urge to reach her very actual self, even if

it be only with knife or bullet. I am sure that this is the explanation

of those many cases of unhappily married folk who everlastingly nag at

each other, and yet will not on any account part company. They cannot

love each other properly, and yet they cannot leave each other alone. A

strange madness urges them into continual contact and collision.

But yet possibly there is even something more in the whole thing, on and

beyond what is here indicated. In the extraordinary and often agonizing

experiences attending the matter of ‘falling in love,’ great changes, as

we have already suggested, are being wrought in the human being.

Astounding inner convulsions and conversions take place—rejections of

old habits, adoptions of new ones. The presence of the beloved exercises

this magical selective and reconstructive influence—and that

independently to a large degree of whether the relation is a happy and

‘successful’ one, or whether it is contrary and unsuccessful. The main

thing is contact, and the coming of one person into touch with the

other.

We have seen, in the case of the Protozoa, the amazing fact of the

‘maturation-divisions’ and the ‘extrusion of polar bodies’ as a

preparation for conjugation—how, when the two cells which are about to

unite approach each other, changes take place already before they come

into contact, and half the chromatin elements from one cell are

expelled, and half the chromatin elements also from the other. What the

exact nature of this division and extrusion may be is a thing not yet

known, but there seems every reason to believe that it is of such a

character as to leave the residual elements on both sides complementary

to one another—so that when united they shall restore the total

attributes of the race-life, only perhaps in a new and unprecedented

combination. The Protozoa in fact ‘prepare’ themselves for conjugation

and realization of the race-life, by casting out certain elements which

would interfere with this realization. And we may well ask ourselves

whether in the case of Man the convulsions and conversions of which we

have spoken have not the same purpose and result, or something much

resembling it. Whatever really takes place in the unseen world in the

case of human Love, we cannot but be persuaded that it is something of

very far-reaching and long-lasting import; and to find that the process

should often involve great pain to the little mortals concerned seems

readily conceivable and by no means unnatural.

The complementary nature of love is a thing which has often been pointed

out—how the dark marries the fair, the tall the short, the active the

lethargic, and so forth. Schopenhauer, in his _Welt als Wille und

Vorstellung_, has made a special study of this subject. Plato, Darwin,

and others have alluded to it. It seems as if, in Love, the creature—to

use Dante Rossetti’s expression—feels a “poignant thirst and exquisite

hunger” for that other one who will supply the elements wanting in

himself, who will restore the balance, and fill up the round of the race

ideal. And as every one of us is eccentric and out of balance and

perfection on one side or another, so it almost seems as if for every

one there must be, on the other side, a complementary character to be

found—who needs _something_ at any rate of what we can supply. And this

consideration may yield us the motto—however painfully conscious we may

be of our own weaknesses and deficiencies and follies and vices and

general ungainliness—the motto of “Never despair!” Innocent folk, whose

studies of this subject have been chiefly perhaps derived from penny

novelettes—are sometimes inclined to think that love is a stereotyped

affair occurring in a certain pattern and under certain conditions

between the ages of 18 and 35; and that if you are not between these

ages and are not fortunate enough to have a good complexion and a nicely

formed aquiline nose, you may as well abandon hope! They suppose that

there is a certain thing called a Man, and another certain thing called

a Woman, and that the combination of these two forms a third quite

stereotyped thing called Marriage, _and there is an end of it_.

But by some kind of Providential arrangement it appears that the actual

facts are very different—that there are really hundreds of thousands of

different kinds of men, and hundreds of thousands of different kinds of

women, and consequently thousands of millions of different kinds of

marriage; that there are no limits of grace or comeliness, or of

character and accomplishment, or even of infirmity or age, within which

love is obliged to move; and that there is no defect, of body or mind,

which is of necessity a bar—which may not even (to some special other

person) become an object of attraction. Thus it is that the ugly and

deformed have no great difficulty in finding their mates—as a visit to

the seaside on a bank-holiday speedily convinces us; a squint may be a

positive attraction to some, as it is said to have been to the

philosopher Descartes, and marks of smallpox indispensable to

others;[29] while I have read of a case somewhere, where the man was

immediately stirred to romance by the sight of a wooden leg in a

woman![30]

But apart from these extreme instances which may be due to special

causes, the general principle of compensation through opposites is very

obvious and marked. The fluffy and absurd little woman is selected by a

tall and statuesque grenadier; the tall and statuesque lady is made love

to by a man who has to stand on a chair to kiss her; the society elegant

takes to a snuffy and preposterous professor; the bookish scholar (as in

_Jude the Obscure_) to a mere whore; the clever beauty (as in _L’homme

qui rit_) to a grinning clown; and of course the ‘wicked’ man is always

saved by the saintly woman. The masculine, virago-like woman, on the

other hand, finds a man who positively _likes_ being beaten with a

stick; and the miaowling, aimlessly amiable female gets a bully for a

husband (and one can only say, “Serve them both right”)... Finally, the

well-formed aquiline nose insists on marrying a pug nose—and this

apparently quite regardless of what the other bodily and mental parts

may be, or what they may want.

Everyone knows cases of quite young men who only love women of really

advanced age, beyond the limit of childbirth; and these are curious

because they seem to point to impelling forces in love beyond and

independent of generation and race-perpetuation, and therefore lying

outside of the Schopenhauerian explanations. And similarly we all know

cases of young girls who are deadly earnest in their affection for quite

old men, men who might well be their fathers or grandfathers, but

hardly, one would think, their husbands. In these cases it looks as if

the young thing needs and seeks a parent as well as a lover—the two in

one, combined. And where such love is returned, it is returned in a kind

of protective love, rather than an amative love—or at any rate as a

love in which the protective and amative characters are closely united.

Similarly there are numbers of cases in which mature or quite grown men

and women only love (passionately and devotedly) boys and girls of

immature age—their love for them ceasing from its ardor and intensity

when the objects of devotion reach the age, say, of twenty or

twenty-one. And in many of these cases the love is ardently returned.

Here, again, it is evidently not a case of generation or

race-perpetuation, but simply of compensation—the young thing requiring

the help and protection of the older, and the older requiring an outlet

for the protective instinct—a case of exchange of essences and

qualities which (if at all decently and sensibly managed) might well go

to the building up of a full and well-rounded life on either side.

In all these cases (and the above are of course only samples out of

thousands) we seem to see an effort of the race-life to restore its

total quality—to restore it through the operation of love—either by

completing and rounding out the life of the individuals concerned, or by

uniting some of their characteristics in the progeny. I say ‘seem to

see,’ because we cannot well suppose that this gives a _complete_

account of the matter, or that it explains the whole meaning of Love;

but it at any rate suggests an important aspect of the question. The

full quality of the race-life is always building itself up and restoring

itself in this manner. A process of Regeneration is always going on. And

this process, as suggested before, is more fundamental even than

Generation—or it is a process of which Generation is only one

department.

Regeneration is the key to the meaning of love—to be in the first place

born again _in_ some one else or _through_ some one else; in the second

place only, to be born again through a child. As in the Protozoa, so

among human beings, generation alone can hardly be looked upon as the

primary object of conjugation; for, among the latter, out of myriads of

unions vast numbers are as a matter of fact infertile, and a

considerable percentage (as indicated above) are quite _necessarily_

infertile, and yet these infertile unions are quite as close, and the

love concerned in them quite as intense and penetrating, as in the case

of the fertile ones. “If a girl were free to choose according to her

inclinations,” says Florence Farr in an eloquent plea for the economic

independence of women,[31] “there is practically no doubt that she would

choose the right father for her child, however badly she might choose a

life-long companion for herself.” In this passage the authoress seems to

suggest (perhaps following Schopenhauer) that the generation of a

perfect child is the one main even though unconscious purpose of

love-union, and that the individual parent-lives may instinctively be

sacrificed for this object. And there no doubt is so far truth in this,

that the tremendous forces of love often pay little respect to the world

conveniences and compatibilities of the lovers themselves, and that

often (as indeed also among the Protozoa) the parent’s life is rudely

and ruthlessly sacrificed for the birth of the next generation. Still,

even so, I think the statement as put here is risky, both as a matter of

fact and as a matter of theory. Would it not be more correct or less

risky to say: “If a girl were free to choose, she would choose the man

who most completely compensated and rounded out her own qualities,

physical and mental (and _so_ would be likely to get her a fine babe),

even though he might not prove the best of companions?”

It is curious, as we have suggested before, how married folk often

quarrel to desperation on the surface, and yet seem to have a deep and

permanent hold on each other—returning together again even after

separation. It seems in these cases as if they mutually obtained a

stimulus from each other, even by their strife, which they could not get

elsewhere. _Iræ amantium redintegratio amoris._ The idea, too, that the

great and primal object of union is to be sought in _the next

generation_ has something unsatisfactory about it. Why not in _this_

generation? Why should the blessedness of mankind always be deferred to

posterity? It is not merely, I take it, the _perpetuation_ of the race

which is the purpose of love, but the perfection of the race, the

completeness and adequacy of its self-expression, which love may make

possible to-day just as well as to-morrow. Ellen Key, in that fine book,

_Liebe und Ehe_,[32] expresses this well when she says: “Love seeks

union, not only in connection with the creation of a new being, but also

because two beings _through one another_ may become a new being, and a

greater than either could be of itself alone.”

The complementary nature of sex-attraction was made much of by that

youthful genius Otto Weininger, who in his book, _Sex and

Character_,[33] has a chapter on the laws of Sexual Attractions in

which, in the true German manner, he not only gives an algebraic formula

for the different types of men and women, but a formula also for the

force of attraction between any two given individuals—which latter of

course becomes infinite when the two individuals are exactly

complementary to each other! Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, in his very

interesting work, _Die Transvestiten_,[34] goes even more into detail

than does Weininger on the subject of the variations of human type in

special regard to sex-characteristics. Sex-characteristics, he explains,

may be divided into four groups, of which two are physiological, namely

the primary characteristics (the sex organs and adjuncts) and the

secondary (the hair, the voice, the breasts, and so forth); and two are

psychological or related (like love-sentiment, mental habit, dress, and

so forth). Each of the four groups includes about four different

elements; so that altogether he tabulates sixteen elements in the human

being—each of which may vary independently of the other fifteen, and

take on at least three possible forms, either distinctly masculine,

distinctly feminine, or intermediate. Calculating up the number of

different types which these variations would thus give rise to, he

arrives at the figure 43,046,721!—which figure, I think we may say, we

need not analyze further, since it is certainly quite large enough for

all practical purposes! And really though we may mock a little at these

fanciful divisions and dissections of human nature, they do help us to

realize the enormous, the astounding number of varieties of which it is

susceptible. And if again we consider that among the supposed

forty-three millions each variety would have its counter type or

complementary individual, then we realize the enormous number of perfect

unions which would be theoretically possible, and the enormous number of

distinct and different ways in which the race-life could thus find

adequate and admirable expression for itself.

However, we are here getting into a somewhat abstract region. To return

to the practical, the complementary idea certainly seems to account for

much of human union; for though there are but few cases in which the

qualities of the uniting parties are really quite complementary to each

other, yet it is obvious that each person tends to seek and admire

attributes in the other which he himself possesses only in small degree.

At the same time, it must not be forgotten that _some_ common qualities

and common ground are necessary as a basis for affection, and that

sympathy and agreement in like interests and habits are at least as

powerful a bond as admiration of opposites. It sometimes happens that

there are immense romances between people of quite different classes and

habits of life, or of quite different race and color; and they see, for

the moment, flaming ideals and wonder-worlds in each other. But unions

in such cases are doubtful and dangerous, because so often the common

ground of sympathy and mutual understanding will be too limited; and

hereditary instincts and influences, deep-lying and deep-working, will

call the wanderers away, even from the star which they seek to follow.

Sympathy with and understanding of the person one lives with must be

cultivated to the last degree possible, because it is a condition of any

real and permanent alliance. And it may even go so far (and should go so

far) as a frank understanding and tolerance of such person’s _other_

loves. After all, it seldom happens, with any one who has more than one

or two great interests in life, that he finds a mate who can sympathize

with or understand them all. In that case a certain portion of his

personality is left out in the cold, as it were; and if this is an

important portion it seems perfectly natural for him to seek for a mate

or a lover on that side too. Two such loves are often perfectly

compatible and reconcilable—though naturally one will be the dominant

love, and the other subsidiary, and if such secondary loves are

good-humoredly tolerated and admitted, the effect will generally be to

confirm the first and original alliance all the more.

All this, however, does not mean that a man can well be ‘in love’ with

two women, for instance, at the same time. To love is a very different

thing from being ‘in love’; and the latter indicates a torrent-rush of

feeling which necessarily can only move towards one person at a time. (A

standing flood of water may embrace and surround several islands, but it

cannot very well _flow_ in more than one direction at once.) But this

torrent-rush does not last forever, and in due time it subsides into the

quiescent and lake-like stage—unless indeed it runs itself out and

disappears altogether.

Against this running out and disappearance it is part of the Art of Love

to be able to guard. It has sometimes been argued that familiarity is of

necessity fatal; and that it is useless to contend against this sinister

tendency implanted in the very nature of love itself. But this

contention contains only a very partial truth. It is true that in

physical love there is a certain physical polarity which, like electric

polarity, tends to equate itself by contact. The exchange of

essences—which we saw as a chief phenomenon of conjugation, from the

protozoa upwards—completes itself in any given case after a given time;

and after that becomes comparatively quiescent. The same with the

exchange of mental essences. Two people, after years, cease to exchange

their views and opinions with the same vitality as at first; they lose

their snap and crackle with regard to each other—and naturally, because

they now know each other’s minds perfectly, and have perhaps modified

them mutually to the point of likeness. But this only means, or should

mean in a healthy case, that their interest in each other has passed

into another plane, that the _venue_ of Love has been removed to another

court. If something has been lost in respect of the physical rush and

torrent, and something in respect of the mental breeze and sparkle,

great things have been gained in the ever-widening assurance and

confidence of spiritual unity, and a kind of lake-like calm which indeed

reflects the heavens. And under all, still in the depths, one may be

conscious of a subtle flow and interchange, yet going on between the two

personalities and relating itself to some deep and unseen movements far

down in the heart of Nature.

Of course for this continuance and permanence of love there must be a

certain amount of continence, not only physical, but on the emotional

plane as well. Anything like nausea, created by excess on either of

these planes, has to be avoided. New subjects of interest, and points of

contact, must be sought; temporary absences rather encouraged than

deprecated; and lesser loves, as we have already hinted, not turned into

gages of battle. Few things, in fact, endear one to a partner so much as

the sense that one can freely confide to him or her one’s _affaires de

cœur_; and when a man and wife have reached this point of confidence in

their relation to each other, it may fairly then be said (however

shocking this may sound to the orthodox) that their union is permanent

and assured.

Nothing can, in the longer enduring values of love, well take the place

of some such chivalrous mutual consideration which reaches the finest

fibres of the heart, and offers a perfect freedom even there. Ellen

Key—to quote her _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_[35] again—says, “Fidelity [in

love] can never be promised, but may be _won afresh_ every day;” and she

continues, “It is sad that this truth—which was clear enough to the

chivalrous sentiment of the old courts of Love—must still to-day be

insisted on. One of the reasons, in fact, which these courts gave, why

love was not compatible with Marriage, was ‘that the wife could never

expect from her husband the fine consideration that the Lover is bound

to exhibit, because the latter only receives as a favor what the husband

takes as his right.’” To preserve love through years and years with this

halo of romance still about it, and this tenderness of devotion which

means a daily renewed gift of freedom, is indeed a great Art. It is a

great and difficult Art, but one which is assuredly “worth while.”

The passion altogether, and in all its aspects, is a wonderful thing;

and perhaps, as remarked before, the less said about it, the better!

When people—I would say—come (not without clatter) and offer you their

hearts, do not pay _too_ much attention. What they offer may be genuine,

or it may not—they themselves probably do not know. Nor do _you_ also

fall into a like mistake, offering something which you have not the

power to give—or to withhold. Silence and Time alone avail. These

things lie on the knees of the gods; which place—though it may seem, as

someone has said, ‘rather cold and uncomfortable’—is perhaps the best

place for them.

CHAPTER V

THE ART OF DYING

We have suggested in the last paper that some day possibly we may arrive

at an intelligent handling of love and its problems, by which at length

the passion may cease to be the cause of endless shipwreck and despair

to mortals, and become a favorable and friendly divinity obedient to our

service. Somewhat thus has been man’s experience with all the great

powers of Nature—with fire and flood on the earth, with the winds and

lightning of heaven. With intelligent treatment they have become his

very ready helpers and allies. And, as indicated in the outset of this

book, we may fairly expect the same conclusion with regard to the great

natural event and process termed Death. The time has come when we are

really called upon to face up to the fact of our decease from the

present conditions of life, physical and mental; when we are called upon

to study and to understand this fact, and by understanding to become

masters of the change which it represents—and able to convert it to our

great use and advantage.

Hitherto—as I shall have occasion presently to point out—there has

been singularly little study of this science, either from the clinical,

the physiological, or the psychological points of view; and the art of

dying, for example (which is the subject of this chapter), seems to have

been entirely neglected.

No doubt it may be said that this is a difficult art—difficult to

study, and more difficult still to practise; yet, after all, that seems

only the more reason for approaching it. The art of _avoiding_ death

commands much attention, and there are hundreds and thousands of books

on that subject; yet since none can really avoid the experience and all

must sooner or later pass through it, it might be thought that the art

of meeting one’s end with discretion and presence of mind would at least

command as much attention.

There ought, one would say—and considering the continual presence of

this great ocean waiting to receive us—to be lessons on the subject of

its navigation free of charge, and available for all who wish, just as

there are lessons in swimming for sailors. And though it may be true

that since, as a rule, one cannot die more than once, it is difficult to

obtain the needed practice, yet even so one may with perseverance get

some approach to doing so. There are a good many recorded cases of

people who have apparently died, and after an interval of a few minutes

or a few hours have come to life again. I knew a married lady, some

years back, who after a long period of illness was given up by the

doctors, and gradually sank till to all appearances she passed away. The

medical man pronounced life to be extinct, and the relatives began to

make the usual arrangements for her funeral. However, being devoted to

her children, and anxious to see them through a critical period, she had

made up her mind _not_ to die, and being a woman of strong will she

clung to her resolution. Two or three hours elapsed, and then, to the

surprise and joy of her friends she returned from ‘the other

side’—after which she lived three or four years, sufficiently long to

carry out what was needed for her family. And though in this case she

had no very distinct experience to report of another state of existence,

yet the fact of her ‘will to live’ having persevered through the sleep

or apparent death of her body and upper mind, was sufficient to convince

her of survival of some sort on a deeper plane, and to disarm all fear

and hesitation when death finally came.

Probably, on the ordinary mental plane, death very much resembles sleep,

and its actual arrival is almost imperceptible; but, in the deeper

regions of the mind, there are not unfrequently signs or suggestions of

a great awakening. An expression of ecstasy often overspreads the

features; sometimes there are sudden apparent recognitions of friends

who have already passed away;[36] in many cases there seems to be a

great extension of memory and perception; and in not a few a distinct

sensation of flying or moving upwards.[37] To these and other similar

considerations I shall return later. At present I would prefer to keep

to the more physical aspects of the question; but even so far, one

cannot help feeling that—whatever collateral drawbacks there may be in

death—in the way of painful illness, parting with friends, disturbance

and abandonment of plans, and so forth—the experience itself must be

enormously interesting. Talk about starting on a journey; but what must

the longest sea-voyage be, compared with this one, with its wonderful

vista, and visions, and voices calling? And again, since it is an

experience that all must go through, and that countless millons of our

fellows _have_ gone through and are still continually going through, for

that very reason alone it has a fascination; and one feels that had one

the opportunity to avoid it one would hardly wish to do so.

As I have said, it is curious that there is next to no instruction or

guidance commonly provided or accessible in this matter. I mean

especially on the physical side. What are our medical folk doing? There

are lots of books on childbirth and the science of parturition, and the

best methods of making the transition easy; but when it comes to the end

of life and the event corresponding and complementary to birth, there is

little except silence and dismay.

The usual course of preparation for this most important event seems to

be (barring accidents) something as follows:—a physically unhealthy and

morally stupid life, which inevitably leads to degenerative tendencies

and ultimately to distinct disease; then one or two breakdowns, which

lead to panic, and the summoning of doctors; then partial recovery,

and a repetition _da capo_ of the whole series, without any of the

least improvement in the general style of life; then of course worse

breakdown and panic, leading at last to violent drugs, injections,

operations, and so forth, in the hope of prolonging existence a few

hours; and finally death arriving, not graciously, but in the sense of

a dismal defeat and rout to everybody concerned; and to the patient a

hurried, confused and embittered end, robbed of all decency and dignity.

Now this won’t do! When one thinks of the deaths of animals—so composed

on the whole—the calm, the quietude, the dignity even, and the absence

as a rule of very acute or obvious suffering; or when one thinks of the

very similar conditions of death among many savage peoples; one cannot

but ask, Why this difference? One cannot but say, It really _will not

do_ for us ‘the heirs of all the ages’ to go on behaving in this feeble

and foolish way—leading lives which utterly unfit us for the inevitable

end of life, and stricken with most incompetent panic and dismay when

the very thing arrives which we have foreseen and which we have had such

ample time to prepare for.

Death—from whatever point of view we look at it—seems to be a break-up

of the unity of the creature.[38] It is a dislocation and to some

degree a rending asunder. But such dislocation and break-up may be

of a healthy and normal type, or it may be unhealthy and of the

nature of disease. In the first case it may chiefly consist in the

getting rid or shedding off of an out-worn husk, which is simply left

behind—much in the same way as the chrysalis sheath of a moth or

other insect is left behind, or as the husks of a growing bud or bulb

are peeled off. Many an old person seems to die in this way—the body

being the scene of little or no disturbance or conflict, but simply

withering up, while often at the same time the spiritual nature of

the man becomes strangely luminous and penetrating. Here there is a

certain dislocation, but no painful rending asunder. The centre of

life seems merely to retire to a more inward and subtle region, where

it perchance nourishes an even brighter flame than before; and the

outer body is peeled off as a sort of outworn shell. But in other

cases death is undoubtedly very different. Instead of the one centre

simply withdrawing inward in the way indicated, while at the same

time preserving almost to the last a general unity of the creature,

rebellious and insubordinate centres spring up and introduce serious

conflict into the organism. These are of course diseases, or centres

of disease—either in the body, like tumors, alien growths, nests

of microbes, and so forth; or in the mind, like violent passions,

greeds, anxieties, fears, rigid habits. And forming thus independent

centres they tear and rend the body and mind between them till at last

death supervenes—not at all on account of the voluntary withdrawal

of the inner person to more ethereal regions, but simply through the

destruction of the organism in which that person functions.

It is evident (whatever view one may take of that inner person and its

perduration into other regions of existence) that the former mode of

death is the more normal, natural and desirable of the two, and the one

which we should encourage and cultivate; and that the latter is likely

to be painful, undignified, and even repulsive.

From this point of view, to strengthen the organizing, regulating power

of the body, as against local growths and insurgencies, seems (in

general terms) the best line to take—the best way of prolonging life,

and of rendering death fairly easy and negotiable. The outlying

centres—as represented by the various organs and faculties, both of the

body and of the mind—have to be kept during life in subordination to

the main centre, and as far as possible in decent harness and exercise,

so as to become neither too slack on the one hand, nor too rowdy and

insolent on the other. In this way, when the vital forces decay, these

organs and faculties remain still subservient to the central being, and

becoming comparatively quiescent make room for its further passage and

development. There are, indeed, some cases of death, in which the whole

inner spirit and consciousness of the man seems to pass on unchanged,

while the rabble rout of the body simply falls away, or is left behind,

like a disused garment or husk as we have said.

It should, however, be noted that the strengthening of the organizing

and regulating forces does not and must not mean the introduction of

rigid and quasi-tyrannical habits (however ‘good’ such habits may be

supposed to be). The interior Person—as we shall see later—is far too

great and free to be adequately represented by any such habits or

regulations, even the ‘best,’ and they really belong to the lower mind

or body. Their dominance leads to an ossifying or woodening and

valetudinarian tendency in the organism, which is as bad in its way as

the uncontrolled or inflammatory tendency.

To avoid these opposite pitfalls, and to live sanely and sensibly, in a

certain close touch with Nature and with the roots of human life, is no

doubt difficult, especially under the ordinary conditions of

civilization; yet it is surely well worth while—both for the sake of

life itself and for the termination of it. And to keep a certain command

of the situation during the mid-period of one’s day is probably the best

way toward commanding the situation at the end. But the ordinary medical

methods—with their drugs, their stimulants, their sleeping-draughts,

their operations, their injections of morphia, serums, and so forth, are

surely acting all the time in the opposite direction. Their tendency

surely is to confuse and weaken the central agency, while at the same

time they excite and sometimes madden the local centres—till not

unfrequently the patient dies, confused, unconscious, wrecked, and a

mass of disorders and corruption. The launching of a ship on the great

ocean is a thing that is prepared for, even during all the period when

the vessel is being built and perfected. I am not a professional; but

will no one write a manual on the subject, even from the medical and

physiological point of view—How to prepare for death.... How to go

through this great change with some degree of satisfaction, command, and

intelligence? Above all, may we have a truce to the so common and

unworthy conspiracies between doctors, nurses, and relatives, by which

for the sake of keeping the patient a few hours (or at most a few days)

longer alive, the unfortunate one—instead of being let alone and

allowed to die peacefully as far as may be, and as indeed in nine cases

out of ten he himself desires—is on the contrary tormented (defenceless

as he is) with operations, inoculations and medical insults of all kinds

up to the very last? The thing has become a positive scandal; and though

the ignorant importunities of lay relatives may sometimes be deplorable,

yet the prospect in one’s last moments of falling into the hands of

professionals is even worse, and adds a new terror to dissolution. It is

at any rate a consolation to know that whatever pains and torments of

illness may have preceded, they generally pass away before the end; and

notwithstanding such current expressions as ‘death-agonies,’ ‘last

struggle,’ and so forth, the hour of death itself is mercifully calm and

peaceful. Walt Whitman, who, in his hospital labors in the American

Civil War, must have been present at a vast number of deathbeds, has

recorded that in the great majority of cases the end comes quite simply,

as an ordinary event of the day, “like having your breakfast.” “Death is

no more painful than birth,” says Dr. Edward Clark in his book on

_Visions: a Study of False Sight_;[39] and most doctors will agree to

the general truth of this expression.

There is a certain sacredness in Death, which should surely be

respected. There is too, we may say, in most cases, a sure instinct

which comes to the patient of what is impending and of what is needed;

and every effort should be made to secure to the sufferer a quiet period

during which he may effect the passage, for himself, disturbed as little

as possible by the grief of friends or the interferences of attendants.

II. PSYCHICAL

We may now discuss the subject in hand somewhat more from the psychical

side. Not that in these matters the physical and the psychical can ever

be completely dissociated, but that having in the preceding section

leaned more to the physical side it may be convenient now to lean rather

to the psychical.

And there is certainly an advantage here—namely, that from this side we

may not unreasonably say that the art of dying _can_ be practised: it is

really possible to approach or even perhaps to pass through Death on the

mental plane, by voluntary effort. Most people regard the loss of

ordinary consciousness (apart from sleep) with something like terror and

horror. The best way to dispel that fear is to walk through the gate

oneself every day—to divest oneself of that consciousness, and,

mentally speaking, to die from time to time. Then one may get accustomed

to it.

Of all the hard facts of Science: as that fire will burn, that water

will freeze, that the earth spins on its axis, and so forth, I know of

none more solid and fundamental than the fact that if you inhibit

thought (and persevere) you come at length to a region of consciousness

below or behind thought, and different from ordinary thought in its

nature and character—a consciousness of quasi-universal quality, and a

realization of an altogether vaster self than that to which we are

accustomed. And since the ordinary consciousness, with which we are

concerned in ordinary life, is before all things founded on the little

local self, and is in fact _self_-consciousness in the little local

sense, it follows that to pass out of that is to die to the ordinary

self and the ordinary world.

It is to die in the ordinary sense, but in another sense it is to wake

up and find that the ‘I,’ one’s real, most intimate self, pervades the

universe and all other beings—that the mountains and the sea and the

stars are a part of one’s body and that one’s soul is in touch with the

souls of all creatures. Yes, far closer than before. It is to be assured

of an indestructible immortal life and of a joy immense and

inexpressible—“to drink of the deep well of rest and joy, and sit with

all the Gods in Paradise.”

So great, so splendid is this experience, that it may be said that all

minor questions and doubts fall away in face of it; and certain it is

that in thousands and thousands of cases the fact of its having come

even once to a man has completely revolutionized his subsequent life and

outlook on the world.

* * * * *

Of exactly how this inhibition of Thought may be practised, and of all

its collateral results and implications it would be out of place to

speak now.[40] Sufficient at present to say that with the completion of

this inhibition, and the realization of the consequent change of

consciousness—even if it be only for a time—the ordinary mental self,

with all its worries, cares, limitations, imperfections, and so forth,

falls completely off, and lies (for the time) like a thing dead; while

the real man practically passes onward into another state of being.

To experience all this with any degree of fulness, is to know that you

have passed through Death; because whatever destruction physical death

may bring to your local senses and faculties, you know that it will not

affect that deeper Self. I mean that having already become aware of your

real self as pervading the life of other creatures, and moving in other

bodies than your so-called own, it clearly does not so very much matter

whether the one body remains or passes. It may make a difference

certainly, but not a fatal or insuperable difference. The vast ocean of

the consciousness into which you have been admitted will not be

profoundly affected, even by the abstraction of a pearl-shell from its

shore.

We have spoken of the Protozoa more than once in these connections; and

it has been said that the Protozoa have been considered immortal

because, though they divide into separate cells or organisms, the life

remains continuous; and because though some of the descendant cells may

die yet the life goes on—so that even in the hundredth generation the

self or ego of a particular cell may be identical with that of the first

parent. And in the case we are considering we have something similar,

for when the common life of souls is once recognized and experienced, it

is clear that nothing can destroy it. It simply passes from one form to

another. And we may perhaps say that as the Protozoa attain to a kind of

immortality _below_ death, or prior to its appearance in the world, so

the emancipated or freed soul attains to immortality above and beyond

death—passing _over_ death, in fact, as a mere detail in its career.

I say, this heart and kernel of a great and immortal self, this

consciousness of a powerful and continuing life within, _is_

there—however deeply it may be buried—within each person; and its

discovery is open to everyone who will truly and persistently seek for

it. And I say that I regard the discovery of this experience—with its

accompanying sense of rest, content, expansion, power, joy, and even

omniscience and immensity—as the most fundamental and important fact

hitherto of human knowledge and scientific inquiry, and one verified and

corroborated by thousands and even millions of human kind. Doubtless, as

already suggested, questions may arise and will arise as to the exact

nature of this continuing life, its exact relation to the local personal

consciousness, as well as to what is called the sublimal self—how far

definite personality and memory go with it, and so forth. These

questions we may return to later. At present let us simply rest on the

experience itself.

When Death is at hand, or its oncoming cannot long be delayed, there is

still _that_ to remember, to revert to, to cling to. And the more often

we have made the experience our very own, in life, the easier will it be

to hold on to at the close. Whatever physical death may bring—in the

way of pain or distress or dislocation of faculty—there still remains

that indefeasible fact, the certainty of the survival of the deepest,

most universal portion of our natures. In some cases this deepest

consciousness does itself remain so clear, so strong that—even through

all the obscurations of illness and bodily weakness—death practically

brings no break; the body is shed off, more or less like a husk or

chrysalis (with effort and struggle perhaps, but without anguish and

despair); and the human being passes on to realize under some other form

the divine life which he has already partially entered into. I think it

evident that this is the state of affairs which we ought to put before

ourselves as the goal of our endeavor. It would seem the only condition

which secures a sense of continuity in death, or which does not carry

with it some threat of failure or extinction. And it suggests to us that

our persistent and unremitted effort during ordinary life should be to

realize and lay hold of this immortal Thing, to conquer and make our own

this very Heart of the universe. It suggests that every magnanimous

deed, every self-forgetting enthusiasm, every great and passionate love,

every determined effort to get down into the heart and truth of things

and below the conventional crust, does really bring us nearer to that

attainment, and hasten the day when mankind at large shall indeed

finally obtain the victory; and the passage into and through death shall

appear natural and simple and clear of obstruction, and even in its due

time desirable.

It is clear, however, that in a great number of cases this deepest

consciousness, even if it has occasionally during life been reached by

the person concerned, has not been sufficiently firmly established to

endure through times of sickness, bodily weakness, and mental decay;

while again, perhaps in the vast majority of cases, the previous

realizations have been almost _nil_, or at most have been too few or too

slight to count for much. What are we to say in such cases as these?

Even if with the eye of faith or philosophy the bystander may seem to

see the immortal spark shining, what consolation or assistance is that

to the sufferer himself, who does not perceive or feel it? What is

likely to be his experience of dissolution? and what may he fairly

expect or look to as any sort of solution of the obscure problem?

To get any kind of answer to these questions and any clear idea of what

really happens in the great majority of cases—when the break-up which

we call dissolution arrives—it will be necessary to analyze roughly the

nature of Man. We shall then see what are the various elements of that

nature, and what their probable destination, respectively. And for the

purpose in hand I think we may divide the complete human being into four

sections—though remembering of course that the classification proposed,

or any such classification, can only be very rough and

tentative—namely, into (1) the eternal and immortal Self, of which we

have already spoken; (2) the inner personal ego or human soul; (3) the

outer personality or animal self; and (4) the actual body. Of these,

(1), the eternal Self, is the germ or root of the whole human being; and

I think we may even say that all the sections and elements of our human

nature are really manifestations or outgrowths from this root (though of

course in most cases unconscious of their real belonging or their real

source). Then (2), the inner personal self or human soul, includes the

finer and subtler elements of ‘character’—which we know so well in our

friends, yet find so difficult to describe, but which are roughly

denoted by such words as affection, courage, wit, sympathy, love of

beauty, sense of equality, freedom, self-reliance, determination, and so

forth; while (3), the outer personality or animal soul (not at all of

course to be despised), is concerned with the more terrestrial desires

and passions like pride, ambition, love of possession, jealousy, and

especially those that relate themselves directly to the body, _e.g._

desires of food, drink, sex, ease, sleep, and so forth; and finally,

(4), the body, includes all the material organs and parts. Other and

intermediate subdivisions may be and sometimes are made, but these four

will probably suffice for the present—remembering, as already said,

that they have only a rough value: hard and fast lines and divisions in

such matters being impossible, and the nature of man being really

continuous and not built in sections; remembering, too, with regard to

all four divisions, that the elements of them are not at all times

present in consciousness, but to a large degree remain conscious or

hidden or subliminal.

CHAPTER IV

THE PASSAGE OF DEATH

Allowing, then, that our human nature may be roughly divided as above

into four main constituents, the destiny of two of these at death seems

pretty clear. It is clear that (1) the central self remains (whether

“we” know it or not) the same as it ever was, and ever will be, eternal,

shining in glory and irradiating the world. It goes on, to be the

birth-source, may be, of numberless lives to come. On the other hand, it

is equally clear that (4) the actual visible tangible body dies,

perishes, and is broken up. Though it may return, in its elements and

through what we call Nature, into the great birth-source, it ceases as

an individual body to exist, and passes even before the eyes of

onlookers into other forms. The fate of these two portions of the human

entity can hardly be doubted—of the innermost central portion,

continuance, with but slow or secular change, if any; of the outermost

material shell, immediate decay and dissolution.

What, then, may we suppose is the destiny of the other two portions, the

human and the animal part? I think we may fairly suppose that they each

share to a considerable degree the destiny of that extreme to which they

are closest related. The outer personality or animal life, (3), is most

closely related to the body. Its passions and desires (though in

themselves psychical and mental entities) look always to the body for

their expression and satisfaction. It is difficult to suppose them

functioning _without_ the body. We cannot, for instance, very well

imagine the passion for drink without some kind of mouth or gullet

through which to work (though of course it may carry on a sort of

dream-activity by representing these channels to itself, or creating

mental images of them). And similarly of the passion of personal vanity,

or the passion of sex: they refer themselves always to the body, in some

degree or other.

It is clear then, I think, that when the body in death breaks up, these

psychic elements which function through it and correspond to the various

parts and organs—these passions and desires, and with them the whole

animal being—are to some extent involved in the ruin. They are (in most

cases) smitten with dire suffering and confusion. A terrible misgiving

and dismay assault them; and with the break-up and disruption of the

body they too experience the agonies of disruption, and foresee their

own dissolution and death.[41]

Yet to conclude from this that these elements do absolutely perish,

would, I think, be a mistake. For these passional entities and this

animal soul, though they seek the body and manifest themselves

through it, are not the same as the body. They have a creative power

within them.[42] The drunkard, as suggested, deprived of his liquor,

represents furiously to himself in imagination the act of drinking: he

dreams a gullet a yard long and an endless swallow—and in doing so he

actually moulds and modifies his swallowing apparatus. The vain man and

the sexual similarly mould and modify their bodies; they contribute to

the building of the shapes which they use. And this sort of process

going on through the ages has _created_ the forms of the animals and

mankind, and their respective members and organs.[43] All these things

are the expression and manifestation and output of the psychical

entities and passions and qualities underlying—which themselves are

implicit in the world-soul, which indeed have grown up and manifested

themselves out of the world-soul, and which still deeply though

hiddenly root back into it.

The most reasonable and obvious answer, then, to the question, What

becomes of the animal life and its satellite passions when the body

dies? seems to be that under normal conditions they die too—in the

sense that they cease to be manifest. They die, like the body, only with

this difference, that _being_ psychical—_i.e._ having a consciousness

and a self underlying, while the body dies back into earth and air, they

die back into the psychic roots from which they originally sprang—that

is, into that form of the Self or World-soul of which they are the

manifestation—as, for instance, in the case of the animals, into the

self or soul of the race; in the case of undeveloped man, partly into

the soul of the race and partly into the human soul which is affiliated

to the soul of the race; and in the case of perfected man, entirely into

the human soul or inner personality which, having now found and

established its union with the supreme and eternal Self, is no longer

dependent on the soul of the race, but has entered into a divine and

immortal life of its own.

Thus in entirely normal cases, both of animals and man, we should

conclude that the animal soul at the time of bodily death may return

perfectly calmly and naturally into its own roots (as fern-fronds die

back in winter), and the whole process may fulfil itself quite simply

and graciously and with a minimum of suffering. But this can only be

expected to happen in instances where instinctively (as in healthy

animals and primitive men) or intentionally (as among a few of mankind)

the perfect unity, physical and mental, of the organism has been

preserved. In such cases each desire and passion, standing in a close

and direct relationship to the spirit or self of the whole organism, is

easily and willingly indrawn again at the appointed time; and there is

little or no struggle or agony. But in the great masses of

mankind—especially in the domains of civilization—where this unity has

been lost, it is easily seen that many of the passional elements, loosed

from the true service of the informing spirit, carry on a mad and

violent career of their own; and to curb these or reduce them to orderly

acquiescence and subordination is almost impossible. On the contrary,

with the general weakening of the total organism they often break out

into greater activity. The ruling passions, “strong in death,” push

themselves to the fore and tyrannize over the failing or ageing man, and

render his actual dissolution stormy and painful; and not only so, but

they sometimes generate phantasmal embodiments of themselves which haunt

the dying man, or even become visible to outsiders.

Frederick Myers, dealing with this subject,[44] invents the term

_psychorrhagy_ for this tendency of portions of the _psyche_ under

certain conditions to break loose from the whole man; and thinks that

this process takes place not only at death, but that there are some folk

_born_ with what he calls a _psychorrhagic diathesis_, who are

consequently peculiarly apt for throwing off phantasms of one kind or

another. He says:[45]—“That which ‘breaks loose’ on my hypothesis is

not the whole principle of life in the organism; rather it is some

psychical element probably of very varying character, and definable

mainly by its power of producing a phantasm, perceptible by one or more

persons, in some portion or other of space. I hold that this

phantasmogenetic effect may be produced either on the mind, and

consequently on the brain of another person—in which case he may

discern the phantasm somewhere in his vicinity, according to his own

mental habit or prepossession—or else directly on a portion of space,

‘out in the open,’ in which case several persons may simultaneously

discern the phantasm in that actual spot.”

Myers then proceeds to give a great number of very interesting and

extremely well-attested cases of such phantasms, ranging from merely

momentary apparitions of persons during their life or at the hour of

their death to the persistent haunting of houses over a long period. And

I mention this in order to show that there is good authority now for

believing it possible not only that phantasms may be generated by the

disintegration of the diseased or dying organism, which will haunt the

patient himself; but that in cases the psychic elements generating these

phantasms may be powerful enough to create a ghostly body which may

endure, surviving the earth-body, and manifesting itself to outside

observers on occasions for a considerable time.[46]

So much for the fate of the outer personality or animal part. Now with

regard to (2), the inner personality or human soul, we may ask, What

becomes of that? And the answer particularly interests us, because it is

with this section that we—or at least the more thoughtful of mankind

generally—identify “ourselves.” It is probable that almost any reader

of these pages would credit his “I” or “self,” not to the one universal

Being (to union with whom he may nevertheless distantly aspire), nor to

the group of terrestrial desires and interests which we have termed the

animal being, but rather to that constellation of nobler character which

we have called the human soul. This, he will say, is the self that truly

interests, that most deeply represents, me. Tell me, what becomes of

that?

I think it is obvious that in the hour of death there are only two

directions in which that human soul can turn, in which “we” can turn. We

can turn for help either outwards toward the region of the animal self,

or inwards toward the central universal self. And I think it equally

obvious that the latter direction can alone really supply our need. At

first no doubt it may be natural to seek outwards; but now alas! in the

hour of dissolution the man discovers that all that region of his

nature, in which indeed he has often found comfort before, is becoming

involved in the ruin above described. Large portions of his animal

faculties are already being torn away—or are sinking into lethargy and

sleep. His bodily organs are losing their vitality; some of them have

already become useless. His mental faculties—especially the more

concrete and external faculties, like the memory of events and

names—are becoming disintegrated. True, his general outlook may in

cases seem to become wider and more serene as death approaches, and his

inner character and personality to become more luminous and gracious;

but it is a perilous passage on which he is embarked and in general

threatening clouds gather round. The consciousness is painfully invaded

by the lesser mentalities which surround it; the ruling passions

domineer; silly little habits and tricks, of mind and body, obsess the

man; phantoms and delirium overpower, or seek to overpower, him; he is

astonished and perturbed to find himself on the fringe of a world in

which figures, half-strange, half-familiar, come and go, and force

themselves upon him with an odd persistence and a rather terrible kind

of intelligence. It requires all his presence of mind to gather himself

together, to hold his own, to suppress the rebel rout, and to find amid

all the flux something indomitable and sure to which to cling.

There is clearly only one thing to cling to—and this must be insisted

on—only that one great redeeming universal Self of which we have

spoken: only that superb omnipresent Life which we find in the very

central depth of our souls. (And fortunate he who has already so far

taken refuge in this, that the wreck and ruin of the visible world and

the mortal onset of Death cannot dislodge him!) That alone is fixed and

sure; and to that the personal man must turn.

And I think we may say that it is not merely the personal soul’s highest

duty and best welfare to turn in this direction; but that in a sense and

by the law of its nature it must do so. For even in those cases where

the man does not recognize this universal Being within, nor consciously

believe in and hold on to the same, still is it not true that

unconsciously he is very near and very closely related? For all the

great qualities which we have already described as characterizing the

most intimate human soul, are they not just those which must relate it

to the universal Self? I mean such things as Equality—the sense of

inner equality with all human and other creatures; Freedom—the sense of

freedom from local and material bonds; Indifference—indifference as to

fate and destiny; Magnanimity; abounding Charity and Love; dignity;

courage; power—all these things, are they not obviously the qualities

which dawn upon the personal soul and color it when it is coming into

touch with the universal? Are they not the natural ‘sign and symbol’ of

union or partial union with that Self? And more: are there not other

things belonging more distinctly to the unconscious and subliminal

region (which we shall deal with presently)—I mean such things as deep

memory, intuition, clairvoyance, telepathy, prophetic faculty, and so

forth—which point to the same conclusion?

The inner personal soul of man is surely already conjoined to the

universal, and must cling to it by its very nature. And though the man

may not exactly be conscious of this union; though he may hardly really

know the depth of his own nature; though, notwithstanding his own

splendid qualities of character, some thin film may yet divide him from

awareness of the all-redeeming Presence; yet none the less that Presence

is there; and is the core and centre of his being.

That being granted, it seems clear that in the disintegration of death

the inner personality (whether consciously or unconsciously) will cling

to the eternal self within it. And this seems to be the explanation of

the part played by Religion in the history of the world, and its close

connection with death. The different religions being lame attempts to

represent under various guises this one root-fact of the central

universal Life, men have at all times clung to the religious creeds and

rituals and ceremonials as symbolizing in some rude way the redemption

and fulfilment of their own most intimate natures—and this whether

consciously understanding the interpretations, or whether (as most

often) only doing so in an unconscious or quite subconscious way.

Happy, I say, is the man who has so far consciously taken refuge and

identified himself with the great life that the onset of death fails to

disturb or dislodge him. For him a wonderful passage is

prepared—amazing indeed and bewildering, baffling at times and

exhausting, yet by no means dismaying or terrifying. But for the

ordinary mortal who has not yet arrived at this—for whom the Presence

(beheld perhaps intermittently before) is now clouded and withdrawn from

his decisive reach—for such a man it would seem best and most natural

simply to gather and compact himself together as firmly as possible, and

detaching his mind as well as he can from its earthly entanglements and

hindrances, to launch forth boldly, and with such faith and confidence

as he can muster, on his strange journey. There is a plant of the Syrian

deserts—the Rose of Jericho—about the size of our common daisy plant,

and bearing a similar flower, which in dry seasons, when the earth about

its roots is turned into mere sand, has the presence of mind to detach

itself from its hold altogether and to roll itself into a mere

ball—flower, root and all. It is then blown along the plains by the

wind and travels away until it reaches some moist and sheltered spot,

when it expands again, takes hold on the ground, uplifts its head, and

merrily blooms once more. Like the little Rose of Jericho, the human

soul has at times to draw in its roots (which we may compare to the

animal part) and separate them from their earthly entanglement; even the

sun in heaven, which it knows distantly for the source of its life, may

be obscured; but compacting itself for the nonce into a sturdy ball, it

starts gaily on its far adventure.

May we presume at all to speculate on the soul’s actual passage out of

this world and its experiences on the way? No doubt there are queer

things to be encountered! I think it is obvious that if the soul passes

out of this terrestrial world of ours into another state of existence

(definite, but quite imperceptible to our present senses) there must be

a borderland region in which phenomena occur of an intermediate

character—faintly and fitfully perceptible by our present faculties,

but lacking in the solidity and regularity of our present world;

borderland phenomena in two senses, as being due (_a_) partly to the

break-up of our present senses and the present stage of existence, and

(_b_) partly to the glimmering perception of forms and figures belonging

to a farther stage.

With regard to (_a_), it is of course common for the mind to ‘wander,’

and for all sorts of phantoms and hallucinations to obsess and cloud it

in the last stages of illness; and these vagaries of the mind are no

doubt due to or connected with excess or deficiency of circulation in

the brain, and morbid physical conditions of one kind or another. But it

is possible that a wider and more general view than that may be taken

concerning them. I have already referred the reader to the Note at the

end of this chapter. All our desires and passions are psychical

entities, having a life and consciousness of their own, though

affiliated to the total soul within which they work. All our organs and

functions are carried on by intelligences, similarly affiliated yet in

degree independent. Under normal conditions “we” are unaware of these;

entities and intelligences—it is only when they rebel that they come

decisively to our notice. In disease, mental and physical, there is

rebellion. We become painfully conscious of the independent and often

undesired activity of our organs, and of our passions—and so,

unfortunately for them, do our friends! In morbid states of mind and

body certain functions, certain passions, take on an independent

vitality to such a degree that at last they endue a kind of personality

and give rise to strings of phantasms which we believe to be real. In

dreams, though there is not exactly rebellion, the higher powers of the

mental organism being at rest, the lesser functionaries similarly

display an extraordinary and impish activity and present us with amazing

masquerades of actual life.

What then, we may ask, does probably happen in the moment of death, when

the organism has become wasted and enfeebled by disease, and when the

nucleus of the man, the inner personality, has compacted itself together

into close compass in preparation for its long journey? What happens to

all those marginal desires which have chiefly occupied themselves with

the affairs of the body or lower mind—those innumerable little spirits

and imps which (as we discover in dreams, or by closely watching our

waking thoughts) are continually planning and scheming their own little

successes and gratifications? What happens to the thousand and one

intelligences which carry on the functions and processes of the

organism? and whose labors, now that the bodily life is coming to an

end, are no more needed? Is there not a danger—or at least a

likelihood—of this strange masquerade of dreamland, of these painful

obsessions of disease, being repeated with ever-increased intensity?

True, that if the organism has been kept so well in hand during life as

to cause all outlying passions and desires to weaken and become

quiescent simultaneously with the body—or at least to go back quietly

into the kennels of a long sleep—like a pack of hounds when the chase

is over—then these phantoms, these obsessions, may in that last hour be

conspicuous by their absence. But since in the vast majority of cases

this is not, and cannot be so, it seems more probable that as a rule the

departing soul will make its exit, not only through the perishing bodily

part, but through a mass of debris, as it may be called, of the mind

(chiefly though perhaps not entirely “the animal mind”), through a cloud

of tags and tatters of mentality, thrown off in the final crisis. It

seems probable that just as the actual body, bereft at death of its one

pervading vitality, breaks out in a mass of corruption or minute

multitudinous life, so there is a _tendency_, at any rate, for the lower

mind to break out into a strange ghostly rabble—a cloud of phantasms,

exhaled and projected from the dying person. Of these phantasms most, no

doubt, are only visible to the patient himself (though that does not

render them any more agreeable as visitors); others are discernible by

clairvoyants present; while others again are distinctly seen even by

persons at a distance in space or time—as in the numerous and

well-authenticated instances of “wraiths.” The picture is not altogether

pleasant, but it has a certain general congruity with admitted facts,

and with a fairly-accepted body of tradition and theory; and

provisionally I suppose we may accept it.

It seems likely, then, that the passage of the inner self, or human

soul, out of life and its delivery in another world, _the other side_ of

death, may very closely correspond to Birth—to the birth of a babe

under ordinary conditions _into_ this world. Just as the babe, when

being born, passes through the lower passages of the body, so the human

self at death is expelled inwardly through all the debris and litter of

the mind, into another less material and more subtle world than ours.

And just as the pangs of childbirth are bad—but they are so mainly

beforehand and in preparation, while the actual delivery is swift and a

vast relief—so, in cases, the pains and anguish in preparation for

death may be great (the squealing of demons torn from their hold on the

soul, the cries of intelligences cut off from their coöperative life and

source of sustenance in the body, the fears and distress of the animal

mind, the yellow fury of the passions, and the death-struggles of the

various organs!) yet the final passage itself may be calm and gracious

and friendly.

Anyhow, as in other cases of human experience, it would be a mistake to

depict this one as by any means uniform in its character. On the

contrary, it is probably susceptible of great variety. The Head of a

Department (if it becomes necessary for him to leave his post) may find,

in one case, that he is turned out, so to speak, with kicks—that he has

to run the gauntlet of the execrations of his subordinates; or in

another case he may leave amid the expression of every good wish, and

along a path made pleasant and easy for him; or again he may go

“trailing clouds of glory,” and with a retinue of followers behind him,

who refuse to remain now that their leader is departing. Some such

differences possibly, and we may say probably, present themselves in the

passage of death. The experience of childbirth varies to an

extraordinary degree. We hear of Indian tribeswomen who only go aside

for an hour while their people are on the march, and then rejoin them

again at the next halting-place. And who knows but what Death and the

preparation for it might be as easy—if only the doctors and the

sky-pilots would hurry up and tell us something really useful, instead

of spending their time in vivisecting the wretched animals, or in

mumbling over ancient creeds?

Now, with regard to the second kind of borderland phenomena, (_b_), the

glimmering perception in death of forms and figures or conditions of

being belonging to a farther stage of existence: I do not propose at

present to dwell upon this matter at any length. But with modern

psychical research there has come a good deal of evidence to show that

on deathbeds it not at all unfrequently happens that distinct and ardent

recognition of departed friends takes place; and though, no doubt, it

may seem possible to explain these as cases in which the simple _memory_

of a departed friend is very powerfully resuscitated, still this

explanation hardly covers a good many cases—such as those for instance

in which the dying person was unaware that the friend had died, and yet

apparently recognized him as a visitor from the beyond-world.[47] Also

of course, modern research has brought forward some amount of testimony

in favor of actual communications with the departed through the agency

of entranced mediums; so that, though this whole matter is still _sub

judice_, we may with fair reason suppose that both in trance-conditions

and in the hour of death there are not merely apparitions and phenomena

due to disintegrations on _this_ side of the border, but also some kind

of real communications and manifestations from the other side.

Anyhow, it is clear that each person’s experience of death is likely to

depend a good deal on the question as to where the centre of gravity of

his self-consciousness is placed; and that—as a part of the Art of

dying—the object of our endeavor should be to throw (during life) the

self-consciousness inward into that part of our being which is durable

and immortal in its nature, into that part in which we are united, and

feel our union, with other creatures, into that portion where the word

itself (self-consciousness) ceases to have a petty and sinister meaning

and becomes transformed with a glorious signification. In that case it

is indeed likely that the soul may be endowed beforehand with divine

vision. It must be our object, by throwing our consciousness always that

way, to strengthen the power of the inner soul over the outer

personality and all its functions, and at the same time to rivet more

and more the hold of that inner soul on the One Self (the source of all

vitality and centre of limitless power, if we only understand it so)—so

that ultimately the outer and animal personality (though always

beautiful in its nature and not to be despised) ceases largely to have

an independent and uncoördinated vitality of its own, or to be the scene

of uncontrolled activities and conflict, and becomes more the expression

and instrument of the inner self: to such a degree indeed that at the

dissolution of the body the animal soul, passing into slumber, easily

dies down to its deep roots in the human soul, there of course to await

its future reawakening, and thus leaving the latter liberated from

earth-entanglement and free to start (like the Syrian rose) on its long

journey.

In this freeing for the forward journey there must, one would think, be

a great sense of joy and satisfaction—even as there must be in the

freeing of a May-fly from its water-bred pupa into the glory of air and

sunshine. Just as it obviously is (notwithstanding some drawbacks) a joy

to the Babe to enter upon its new life, so it may well be that to the

dying person—notwithstanding the perils of the change, the fears of the

unknown, the parting with friends, the apparent rending of cherished

ties—there is a strange joy in shelling off the old husks, and in

getting rid of the accumulations and dead rubbish of a lifetime. A

thousand and one tiresome old infirmities and bonds of body and

mind—now for the first time realized in their true meaning—slip off;

and the ship of the soul, “to port and hawser’s tie no more returning,”

departs with a strange thrill and quiver upon its “endless cruise.”

The details of this launch and departure we cannot of course ordain. The

mode of death is not always within our sphere to determine. Accident may

decide, or some hereditary weakness for which the individual can hardly

be held responsible. Some diseases are by their nature hard upon the

patient; others are kindly in their course. In those that bring great

weakness of body there is sometimes an easy passage—the earthly and

corporeal part relaxing its hold, while the mind and character become

heavenly-clear. In others of an inflammatory nature, or where there is

great organic vitality, there may be severe and prolonged struggle.

Anyhow, one can imagine the relief when the process is complete. It is

not uncommon to experience a strange expansion of the spirit on

occasions when the body is seriously weakened by ordinary illness. What

must this expansion be when the body finally succumbs—this sense of

immensely enlarged life, this impression of sailing forth toward a new

and boundless ocean! How strange to stand a moment on the brink of

terrestrial mortality, and to be conscious of—to _see_, even with the

inner visual power—the shell one has left behind, with all its

commonplace and banal surroundings: concrete indeed and material enough,

but lying now outside oneself—something almost foreign to one and

indifferent, abandoned on the very margin and shore of real life; to

stand for a moment; and then to turn and pass inward into that subtle

and immense ethereal existence, now to be learnt and explored, which

lies within and informs and transfuses all our solid world, and

surpasses all its boundaries!

NOTE TO CHAPTER VI

In order not to burden this already rather lengthy chapter with matter

which may not be needed, I append here some general considerations for

those who have not given much attention to the subject of the various

grades of consciousness in the body—considerations tending to show that

the various parts and passions of the body and mind have a life and

intelligence of their own, and that the whole human organism is a

hierarchy (not always perfectly harmonious) of psychic entities.

We generally allow of course that our central or dominant selves are

alive and conscious (though no doubt we use those epithets with a rather

sad vagueness). But having allowed that, the extraordinary phenomena of

variable and alternating personality compel us to admit that there may

be many such centres within one person, each of which though now buried

may in its turn become dominant and take conscious lead, and which must

therefore be credited with life and intelligence (even if an alien life

and intelligence to “our own”). Even the most ordinary brain-centres are

in the habit of carrying on whole departments of the bodily organization

with an independent intelligence of their own, and are sometimes liable

under the influence of some excitement (like drink, or religion, or some

enthusiasm) to take possession of the whole man and transform him into

another creature—exhibiting in doing so a strange degree of invasive

vitality and alertness. It is quite certain that the myriad microscopic

cells of the body are alive, each with its own little particular life;

and the more one studies these cells the more difficult it is not to

credit them each, in their degree, with a particular consciousness or

intelligence. And each body-organ again, composed of a congeries or

colony of body-cells, has a life of its own on and beyond that of its

component cells, and exhibits curious signs too of intelligence and

emotion, which often (especially in sickness) affect the moods and

thoughts of the entire man.

The whole of the subconscious world, in fact—that world which only

occasionally breaks through into the upper consciousness—must be

allowed to be alive, and in its various degrees methodical and

calculating. This is well seen in the phenomena of dreams and of

hypnotism, in both of which the most acute and diabolical ingenuity is

often shown—as of weird imps working in dark chambers of the brain

quite unbeknown to their supposed lord and master; or in the

extraordinary phenomena of trance and “automatic” speaking and writing;

or in telepathy and clairvoyance; or again in the craftiness of utter

lunatics; or in the strange evasions and mental dodgery which (as just

hinted) are induced by diseases of certain organs; or in the phenomena

of mental healing, where an appeal to the subconscious intelligence in

any and every corner of the body is often followed by extraordinary

response; or in the subtle instinctive knowledge and perception of

babes, and of animals, long before _self_-consciousness has developed;

or again, in the sly cunning of ancient dotards; or in the complex

bodily reflexes carried on perfectly unknown to ourselves during life;

or in the continued functioning of some of the organs after death. In

all these cases, and in scores of others not mentioned, it is clear that

the majority of the processes of the human system are carried on by

minor intelligences. They are indeed carried on by _crowds_ of minor

intelligences—to which we accord the epithet “automatic,” and which no

doubt we regard as mechanical, as long, that is, as they work smoothly

and without friction and opposition. But when they do not do so, when

pain, disease and lunacy cut in—when a violent burn sets the epithelial

cells screaming, and the scream comes into our consciousness as the

vibration of pain; when a diseased liver twists the events of life and

the faces of our friends into malignant shape and mien; when lust and

hypochondria people the mind with phantoms; and drink makes all the

functions mad—then we say we are “possessed with devils,” then we

recognize, if only on the dark side, the pervading intelligence or

intelligences of the body.

It is like the Head of a Department, as I have said, whose subordinate

officials are working under him agreeably and harmoniously. As long as

that is the case, he may have in his mind a general outline of the

working of the Department. He probably is ignorant of most of the

details; he certainly does not know personally many of his subordinates,

but he superintends the working of the whole. Presently, however, occurs

something of a strike or _émeute_; whereupon he discovers that vast

numbers of his men are intelligently discussing questions or problems of

whose existence he was almost ignorant; personalities appear before him

whom, before, he knew at most only by name; and they argue their case

with an acumen and vitality which surprises him. For the first time, in

this revolt of his department, he comes to realize the amount of

intelligent activity which is at work within it, beneath the surface. So

it is with us in the case of disease. In health we have no trouble,

unity prevails. As long as “we” are on top, and the intelligences which

carry on the body are working on friendly terms with us, their minds do

not intrude into our realm, and we are practically unaware of them. But

when through our mismanagement or other cause dissension breaks out,

then indeed we realize what kind of forces they are with which we have

to deal, and of what a wonderful hierarchy of intelligences the body is

composed.[48]