REBIRTH: ITS JUSTICE
No matter how much we may differ in our view of the relationship between
God and man there is general agreement about the attributes of the
Supreme Being. All ascribe to him unlimited power, wisdom, love and, of
course, the perfection of all those desirable qualities we see in human
beings. The theosophical view is that all we know in man of power,
wisdom, love, justice, beauty, harmony, et cetera, are faint but actual
manifestations of the attributes of the deity. All who are not
materialists, denying the existence of a Supreme Being, will agree that
the wisdom and justice of God must be perfect. It would be illogical and
inconsistent to limit or qualify His attributes. Either He is all-wise
and absolutely just, or else the materialist is right. We cannot have a
deity at all unless He represents perfect justice.
Another point on which all but the materialists must agree is that
creation is so ordered that the common welfare of humanity is best
served by just the conditions of life that surround us. Nothing is
different from what it should be unless it is because of man's failure
to do what he should do for his own welfare. If it were otherwise what
would become of the argument that an omniscient God has ordered it as it
is? If, then, things are as they should be in the truest interests of
man, and we find things in life that, according to our views of
creation, are not right and just, it necessarily follows that the views
we hold are erroneous.
The popular belief is that human beings constitute a special creation;
that whenever a baby is born God creates a soul or consciousness for
that body and that after a life of many years, or a few days, or a few
minutes, as the case may be, the body dies and the consciousness goes to
dwell in remote regions for ever and ever. If the person lived a good
life and also believed in the current religion he will be "saved" and
will be eternally happy. If he did not live a good life but finally
"believed" before death he will be saved anyway and be just as happy as
though he had lived right from the start. If he did live a good life,
but was not born with the ability to believe easily, he will be lost and
will be eternally miserable. According to this theory of special
creation God makes people of all sorts. None of them can help being what
they are created. Some are wise and some are foolish. Those who are
smart enough to find the way of salvation will finally have heaven added
to their original gift of wisdom. Those who are not smart enough to find
it will finally have hell added to their original lack of sense. This is
what some people are pleased to call divine justice!
It will hardly do to argue that the possibility that all may at last be
happy in an endless heaven, makes it unimportant that there are
inequalities now. The majority of the theologians do not admit that such
a state awaits the whole of the human race, and the comparatively few
who do believe it will hardly venture to assert that present justice can
be determined by future happiness. Even if we positively knew that
eternal bliss awaited everybody after the close of this physical life
how could that make it just that one person shall be born a congenital
criminal and another shall be born a poet and philosopher? How could it
make it right that one is born to life-long illness, suffering and
poverty, while another inherits both wealth and a sound physical body?
Not even the certainty of future happiness would be compensation for
present inequalities. But why should there be any such inequalities if
God represents unlimited power and perfect justice? Why should there be
any poverty when, if He really created the soul itself instantaneously,
He can as certainly create any necessary condition for the soul? Why
poverty and disease and suffering at all? There must be a better answer
to such questions than that "it pleased God to have it so." It is surely
little better than blasphemy to suggest that any kind of hard conditions
for man are pleasing to the deity.
To hold that any future condition of happiness can make present justice
out of the truly terrible inequalities of life, would be much like a
millionaire who has two sons giving one of them all the advantages of
wealth, travel, skilled instructors and special care, while the other
was permitted to wear rags and go hungry. If the neglected son asked why
he was thus treated while his brother was most carefully provided for,
the father might reply with some indignation, "You are to have plenty in
the future! My will is so drawn that when I die my great wealth will be
equally divided between you and your brother. You will then be a
millionaire with more money than you can possibly spend. So don't be
foolish about your hardships now. Learn to starve like a gentleman!" The
father's position in such a case would be just as reasonable as that of
those who think a heaven hereafter can justify an earthly hell now.
Now let us take some of the particular facts of life that puzzle us and
test them with the hypothesis of special creation, and also with the
hypothesis of reincarnation, and see which can really explain them in a
satisfactory manner. We will take some facts of real life. In a
Massachusetts prison there is an old man whose name became familiar to
many of us in our youth. He was then known as Jesse Pomeroy, the boy
murderer. The present generation scarcely knows him. But forty years or
more ago he was talked about by all the newspapers. For the crime of
murdering his playmates the boy was sent to prison for life. Why did
Pomeroy become a noted criminal in childhood? If the theory of special
creation is sound he was created and put in the world to fit himself for
a future heaven. But he was created in such fashion that he was
deficient in moral perception and he began life with an act that led to
his expulsion from society. If God created this soul as we first knew
him why was he not created with the moral balance of a law-abiding
citizen so that he could have lived long and peacefully in civilized
society and have been prepared for heaven at death? What could have been
the purpose of giving him a brain that could not think soundly and a
conscience that welcomed murder? That leads us inevitably to the
question, Why are criminals created at all? Why are idiots created? The
deeper we look into the facts of life the more unsatisfactory does the
theory of special creation become because we find a thousand things that
contradict it and show its inconsistency. If the purpose of God was to
create a heaven to be enjoyed by those who reach it we cannot see why He
should create a humanity the majority of which is incapable of ever
attaining it. If He creates them as they come into the world at birth
why are not all of them created wise and kind? Why must most of them
blunder through life, making all sorts of mistakes, bringing suffering
to others by their unkindness or cruelty and only, in the end, to pass
from a life of failure to eternal punishment for that failure? There is
no reason, no justice, no sanity in such a theory.
Now let us turn to the explanation of reincarnation. According to that,
Pomeroy has had many past incarnations and will have many more. Like all
the rest of us he came up from primitive man. We have all learned the
lessons of civilized life slowly by experience like children acquiring
lessons from their books. The majority have come along well and
developed a fair share of intellect in dealing with life's problems,
and some degree of sympathy for others. Some have evolved rapidly like
hard working pupils and they are called geniuses. Some have lagged
behind and have learned very little. They are like the truants at school
who have broken the rules and run away from their lessons. These
laggards of the human race are the dullards and the criminals, who have
moved so slowly incarnation after incarnation, or are so much younger in
evolution, that they are now bringing savage traits into our present
civilized life.
Reincarnation not only explains who and what the criminal is but it also
explains away the hell with which special creation threatens him. No
hell awaits him except that which he has created himself by what he has
done. By the law of cause and effect all the cruelty and suffering he
has inflicted will react upon him to his sorrow, but will also serve for
his enlightenment. In his next incarnation the kind of body he will have
and the environment in which he will live will be determined exactly by
the thoughts and emotions and acts of this and past incarnations. He
will therefore neither go to a heaven for which he is not fitted nor to
a hell which he does not justly deserve. He will simply come back in
another physical body and have a chance to try it again, but he will
have to make the trial under the conditions which his conduct has
merited.
And what of the idiot? According to special creation we cannot possibly
explain him. It would be blasphemous to believe that God creates a
mindless man. If one soul is given a mind and another is not, and for no
reason whatever, it is the most monstrous injustice that ever forced
itself upon the understanding of man! Think for a moment of the
difference between the idiot and the normal person. The man of sound
mind has before him the opportunity of progress, of mental and moral
development. The avenues of business and professional life are open
before him. He is free to try his powers and win his way. Wealth, power
and fame are all possible for him. All the joys of social life may be
his. Think of him surrounded by his family and friends, successful,
satisfied, happy, and then think of the life of the idiot. Language
cannot express the horror of the contrast! If there were no other
explanation of life than that of special creation it would change the
world into the hopeless hell of a mad-house. Again reincarnation saves
us from either blasphemy or madness. The idiot, like the congenital
cripple, differs from the normal man only in the body, which is the
instrument of the soul. Deformity of the body is a limitation of the ego
who functions through it. A withered arm, a club foot, a deformed back,
in this incarnation are results of unfortunate causes which that soul
has generated in past lives. In idiocy the malformation is in the brain.
Of course this is not an accident. There is no element of chance which
places the limitation in one body where it causes but little trouble and
in another where it prevents mental activity and thus produces idiocy.
In each case it is the exact working out of the law. The body of the
idiot is the physical plane representation of a soul that has made a
serious blunder in the past, possible by limiting another with cruel
restraint, and the gross misuse of his intellect and power in that way
has operated to prevent his using it at all in the present life. But
such limitations belong to the outer planes. It is the form that limits
and when the form perishes the limitation disappears. As with the
criminal no hell is needed to punish the idiot. He has made his own hell
by his mistake in the past and in this incarnation he must live in it
and expiate his blunder. Perhaps it may seem to some that since the
idiot is incapable of realizing the life of the normal person the
situation represents no real misfortune for him. But idiocy on the
physical plane does not mean idiocy in the soul. Even from the astral
plane the ego may keenly feel the horror of functioning for a lifetime
through such a physical body, as one here would feel the anguish of
incarceration in a dungeon.
The criminal and the idiot are striking illustrations of the failure of
the theory of special creation to satisfactorily explain the facts of
life. But if we turn to the other extreme and consider the most
fortunate people in the world we shall find there, too, precisely the
same failure to explain. By the hypothesis of special creation we find a
gross injustice done to the soul born an ignoramus. Yet we find others
possessing enough intelligence for several people. In the case of
Macaulay we have the evidence in his own handwriting in a letter the
date of which proves his age, that he was reading Greek and Latin and
studying mathematics deeply when seven years old. There are many other
cases of the remarkable display of talents in childhood, but a single
instance will serve for all. It is all the better as an illustration
because it is a contemporaneous case and the facts are known to scores
of living people. It is recorded of William James Sidis, of Brookline,
Massachusetts, that at six years of age he entered a grammar school and
in six months had completed the work of seven grades. At the age of
seven he had gone so far with his mathematical studies that his father,
Professor Boris Sidis, could be of little assistance to him. He worked
out the most abstruse and difficult problems with the greatest ease and
invented new systems of computation which attracted much attention. When
eight years old he entered the Brookline High School and in six weeks
had completed the mathematical course and began writing a book on
astronomy. He then took up the study of French, German, Latin and
Russian. On leaving school he took up mathematics as a specialty and
invented a system of logarithms based on the number 12 instead of 10.
This was inspected by several well known mathematicians who pronounced
it perfect in every detail. He applied for admission to Harvard
University but the authorities refused his petition on account of his
youth, only, since he could have passed the examination with ease. He
tried again the next year and was again refused on the same ground. But
at eleven years of age, having passed the entrance examination for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was judged to know enough of
chemistry and kindred subjects to make him eligible for admission to the
Harvard medical school. He then entered upon a special course at Harvard
because the ordinary course in college was far below the abilities of
this boy of eleven years. Professor James, of Harvard, the famous
psychologist, has pronounced him the greatest mental marvel he ever
knew. It is said the young prodigy could recite pages of Shakespeare
from memory at an age when the ordinary boy is learning his alphabet.
In the same city where young Sidis was born we find the idiot. Did God
create them both as they were born or did they come up to their present
difference of mental equipment through a process of evolution that
accounts for it all satisfactorily? If the theory of special creation is
sound why did not the idiot get at least a little of the intellect that
Sidis could so easily have spared? If they are the work of special
creation it is impossible to find reason or justice in such terrible
inequalities. But if reincarnation is God's method of creation the
explanation of the difference between them becomes simple. Sidis is not
only an old soul but evidently one who has worked hard in past lives,
throwing off the lassitude of the dense bodies and evolving the power of
will that enabled him to triumph over obstacles, conquering all the
enemies of intellectual progress and thus earning the fine physical body
and brain he now possesses. His present abilities are but the sum total
of the energies he has put forth in the past.
The theory of special creation does not explain the facts of life. It
lacks justice, it lacks harmony and it lacks consistency. It is not in
accord with natural law. Nature knows no such thing as special creation.
To believe in special creation is to ignore all scientific facts and
principles. On the other hand reincarnation is in harmony with science
and with natural law. Reincarnation is evolution and every kingdom of
nature develops through evolution. The difference between the shriveled
wild grain that struggles with the rock and soil for life enough to
barely reproduce itself, and the plump wheat of the cultivated fields
that feeds the world, is the work of evolution. The wild stalk produced
the seed and from that seed came a better stalk. The better stalk
produced a still better kernel and from that better kernel sprang a
superior stalk to yield a higher grade of wheat than any of its
predecessors. The stalk sprouts from the ground, matures, stores all its
gain of growth within the seed and perishes. But from the seed springs
its reincarnated form, to repeat the process that changes poor to good,
good to better and better into best. And thus it is with the
reincarnating soul. As the almost worthless grain through many seasons
is slowly changed to perfect worth, the soul is by that same law of
evolution slowly changed through many incarnations from the chaos of
savage instincts to the law and order of the moral world. Each
incarnation yields some improvement. As the seed sprouts within the
darkness of the soil and, perishing there, attains its full results in
the higher realm of sun and air, drawing from the soil that which,
stored within the grain, gives power to reproduce its better self, so
the soul strikes anchorage in the lower planes and draws from its varied
experiences that which, transmuted after the body's death, gives the
power to return with greater life.
Attempts have been made to find some explanation of the mental and moral
inequalities that exist at birth. In the earlier days of the study of
evolution it was usually asserted that the human being inherits his
mentality and morality from his parents. But even if that were true the
injustice of one being born a genius and another a fool would remain. It
is the fact of inequality that constitutes the injustice, and it is of
no importance whether it comes about through heredity or otherwise. But
as a matter of fact heredity is confined to the physical side of
existence. As more and more is learned by observation the old theory of
mental and moral heredity has lost ground until it can be said that it
now has no recognition in the scientific world. Nobody is better
qualified to speak upon the subject than those with practical
experience. Dr. A. Ritter, of the Stanford University Children's Clinic,
that has large numbers of defective children in charge, treating no less
than sixteen hundred in a single year, says:
"As to the definite causes of the prevalence of defective
types, I cannot speak with finality or assurance. I do not
agree with social or educational doctrinaires who assign
the causes definitely to liquor, poverty, infectious
diseases, or other social or moral shortcomings. The
greatest minds of the world are hesitant in theorizing
about this. There are a complex of causes which explain
many of these cases, but no generalization fits absolutely.
We may find a case which is not traceable to any of these
conditions--_a case in which the antecedents would promise
a perfectly normal child, and yet we are confronted with a
defective child_. On the other hand, bright, normal
children, even children of superior intelligence sometimes
spring from such conditions."[L]
A little reasoning about the facts concerning both genius and idiocy
will make it clear that neither is inherited. If it were true that
genius is inherited society would present a different appearance. There
would be famous families of geniuses living in the world, in music, in
poetry, in warfare, in invention, in art, if genius were inherited. The
fact is that it is difficult to find even two geniuses in any family.
The Caesars, Napoleons, Edisons, Lincolns, Wagners, Shakespeares, stand
alone with neither great ancestors nor great descendants. We search in
vain for great ancestors for such men; but if the theory of mental
heredity were sound we should know their ancestors for precisely the
same reason that we know them.
Heredity, then, does not explain whence genius comes; and if anybody had
really traced genius from father, or grandfather, to son or grandson, we
should still have no explanation of what genius is. We could then only
regard it as the result of some strange chance; yet the scientist knows
that laws of nature contain no such element. But the only reason why
genius appears so incomprehensible is because we have not looked at it
in the light of nature's truth. We have erroneously assumed that this is
the only life we live on the physical plane, and therefore the time is
too short for the evolution of genius. A man can become an expert in one
lifetime but not a genius. But if we give him many incarnations to
develop along certain lines he can become a genius of a given type. The
soul that works strenuously at building up a certain faculty through
many incarnations naturally develops qualities in the causal body that
shine out brilliantly upon its return to a physical body and we have the
genius. We evolve our mentality and morality, and there could be no
justice in life if it were otherwise.
There is no element of chance in getting a new physical body in the next
incarnation. The body is the material expression of the self. It is as
much the product of the self as the rose is of the bush, the apple of
the tree, or the tulip of the bulb. The musician can no more get a body
suitable to the blacksmith than the rose bush can produce an apple. We
do not get bodies by lottery, like destitute people drawing clothing by
numbers which might result in grotesque misfits. We do not get bodies at
all, we evolve them, and in each incarnation the new body expresses all
the soul has come to be up to that point in its evolution. Such a view
of life has a basis of absolute justice. Every soul gets exactly what
it has earned.
The common belief in Occidental civilization is that we live here for
only sixty or seventy years and that then, when we die, we pass on to
live eternally somewhere else, and that the whole of eternity, whether
it is filled with pleasure or is horrible with pain, is made to depend
on how we spent those few years of the physical life! Such a fate would
be unfair and unjust. If a schoolboy is incorrigible for a term it would
not be fair to condemn him to lose all opportunity of getting an
education. We would give him another chance at the following term.
A little incident of disobedience from home life will illustrate the
point involved. A quinine capsule was lying on the table. A
three-year-old boy reached for it. His mother called across the room,
"Don't eat that, dearie, it isn't candy." But in a spirit of reckless
mischief he hurried it into his mouth and quickly chewed it up! It was a
very disagreeable but salutary lesson for the little fellow. It is an
example of nature's methods. She is always consistent, and has a
balanced relationship between cause and effect. But suppose in this case
we throw her consistency aside as those who believe that eternal results
will follow temporal effects are obliged to do. An ordinary lifetime
compared to eternity is somewhat like that instant of disobedience
compared to eighty years, but the illustration is not adequate because
eternity never ends. As nearly as the principle can be applied it would
be by saying to the child, "Because you were disobedient for a second
of time you shall taste quinine for eighty years!" If that punishment is
injustice what must we call the infliction of an eternity of pain as the
result of the errors committed in a lifetime?
Any hypothesis of existence that does not take into consideration the
welfare of humanity is a false hypothesis. What plan can better serve
the common welfare than a chance to redeem a failure? When a prisoner is
condemned for a crime we do not deprive him of opportunities. We give
him every possible chance to improve his character. God cannot be less
just or merciful than man. Rebirth is a new chance. Every incarnation is
another opportunity.
If the popular idea of an eternal heaven and hell is sound, and there be
few who find the "narrow way," the time will come when the majority of
the race will have used their one opportunity of a brief lifetime, and
have failed. If that were really true, it is easy to imagine what they
would do with another opportunity if they had it! How long should
opportunity be given? Just as long as it will be used, and to deprive
anybody of it when he is eager to redeem past errors is to ignore the
principles of human welfare. Therefore such a plan cannot be the true
one. John J. Ingalls personified opportunity and wrote:
Master of human destinies am I!
Fame, Love and Fortune on my footsteps wait;
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate.
If sleeping, awake; if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save Death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore;
I answer not and I return no more.
That is true enough from one viewpoint and profitably emphasizes the
importance of promptly acting when the time for action arrives. But
there is another truth to be expressed on the subject and it is well
done by Walter Malone, who says:
They do me wrong who say I come no more,
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you awake and rise to fight and win.
Wail not for precious chances passed away;
Weep not for golden ages on the wane;
Each night I burn the records of the day,
At sunrise every soul is born again.
Laugh like a boy at splendors that are sped;
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,
But never bind a moment yet to come.
Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep,
I lend my arm to all who say, "I can."
What a magnificent view of human evolution! No ultimate failure possible
because there is always another chance. The failure of one incarnation
made good by the sincere efforts of the next. All the faults and
frailties--the shadow blots of the past--vanishing in the light of a
higher wisdom that has been won. No endless hell, no eternal torment;
not even the ghosts of vanished chances to haunt the mind; but only the
insistent voice of immortal Opportunity, urging us to wake and rise to
strive and win!
FOOTNOTES:
[L] Interview in San Francisco Examiner, March 5, 1916.