questions, until I had finished. This is how I explained it: We all
believe—we seven here—that the good is understanding, love, the
complete Divine Self, and everything which leads thereto is good. Then
everything bad is that which does not lead thereto; or, rather, that is
called bad which has not gone so far as the rest. So that the bad is not
an actual state—in this I agree with Ruth—but is a condition of good.
All pains are growing pains. Things are bad only because we already have
something better. The other day I heard Virginia saying that when reason
came into the world, creatures first knew the bad; because they saw that
the life they had lived was a bad life. So, you see, everything bad is
something which we feel to be behind us, not equal to our best
knowledge. Pain and badness are the price of progress, and we would
rather go forward and suffer than stand still and be comfortable. We
long to go forward to the good, to the vast self of complete
understanding. “A criminal,” I said, “may be a man who would have been
good if he had lived in savage times among savages, but at present he is
bad because we are ahead of him.”
“Then a bad man,” said Henry, “is one who is behind his times, or else
ahead of them.”
“Oh, no,” they protested, “not ahead of them!”
“No,” I answered, “but the man ahead of his time, who is better than his
time, may appear to be a criminal. You must see that the man who
believes in the eternal good, who knows that he is going toward unity
and complete love, is in a sense above the human law, and must discover
his own laws. He may be a criminal in the eyes of others.”
“Give us an example,” they said.
“Jesus is one example. He was crucified as a criminal.”
“Because,” said Henry, “he broke the Roman law. He refused to worship
their images, and he called himself King of the Jews.”
“And they did not know,” I answered, “in what sense he called himself
King, so they had to crucify him as a traitor. Can’t you think of some
other example? Of course, there were all the heretics of old times.”
Alfred and Henry said that Roosevelt was in a sense an example, because
he had been much blamed for exposing the truth and hurting business; but
that the hurt was an essential part of progress and good.
Ruth said: “Surely it is better to expose the truth and suffer for it,
than to go on in falsehood.”
I gave as another example the Russians, with whom, a short time ago, it
was a crime to educate the peasants; and I told how brave men and women
had been sent to Siberia for breaking the law in this respect.
“But,” I said, “this is a dangerous subject, and truly, we ought not to
have mentioned it until we could probe it to the bottom. For surely in a
democratic state one of the essential inner laws is that we shall obey
the law which our fellows have made.”
“If a law seems wrong to a man,” said Henry, “he can try to change it,
but meantime he must obey it. For instance, a man might believe in free
trade, but still he would have no right to smuggle in goods.”
“One ought to obey school-laws, I suppose,” said Marian.
“Surely,” I answered, “for the school is an institution you enter from
choice, and if you don’t like the laws you can protest by leaving. But
if there were a law unjust to your fellows, you would disobey it. Still,
even then, the best way to protest would be by a strike of the
students.”
They had a long discussion on the great crime of whispering in school,
in which I scarcely joined, as I refuse to be a petty preacher to them.
But I tried to explain to them why it was so hard for them to obey these
little laws.
“It is,” I said, “because you did not help to make the laws yourselves,
that you are tempted to break them out of mere mischief. Still, you
would not lie about it, but rather do it openly, because you feel that
truth between individuals is an inner law, the first step toward
understanding. You know I believe that, even unconsciously, we have all
always striven for this unity, this completeness that now we are going
to strive for with open eyes.”
“And all bad leads in the same direction, and comes to good,” said
Virginia.
“Now I want you to understand that clearly,” I said. “All bad things are
bad only because they do not reach up to our idea of the best. But that
bad things are turned to good, or used for good is because we use them
so; because the desire and the striving for good is so strong within us,
that we use them to fulfil that desire. It is not a necessity. It is a
matter of choice. If we wish, we can use everything for good. And we
often do so, even unconsciously. Everything strives toward that good,
which is life itself.”
“Then you believe,” said Marian, “that even every criminal has some good
in him?”
“Yes, surely,” I answered, “else he would not be here, alive, at all.
Every living being is good; and if he is not so far as we at present, he
may go farther than we some day. Surely, we will take him onward with
us, else we cannot be complete. You must see that any one who believes
the great good to be understanding love and unity, cannot be made whole
till every one is made whole with him. He needs all the world.”
“Every one must feel that,” said Marian.
“The other day, Marian,” I went on, “you said: ‘If we can never reach
the goal, what is the good of anything?’ Now, I, for one, believe in
infinite good; I believe that no matter how far we go, we shall long to
go farther, so that what now would seem unimaginably good to us might
one day seem bad. Can you imagine stagnant perfection?”
“I think,” said Marian, “that a perfectly good world would be terribly
monotonous.”
“That is what I think, too,” I answered. “What we love is the going
forward, the achieving, the striving.”
Henry said: “It is like travelling toward the horizon, and we think that
is the end. But when we reach it, we see another horizon.”
Ruth asked: “How can we strive for anything, if we don’t expect to reach
it? Is not God what we long to reach? Is not God the ideal?”
“Is not God, the real, here, now?” I answered her. “I cannot understand
Infinity or Eternity, so I say Infinity is here and Eternity is now,
because I am always here and now. So I cannot understand infinite good
and unity, but I know that here and now I must strive for it, and that
the constant striving, and getting more and ever more, is my greatest
joy. Now, Ruth, do you admit that we cannot go forward alone, that all
must go together to be complete?”
“Yes.”
“Then the whole is one, and every man and creature is a part of me.”
“If every one believed that,” said Marian, “how different, how much
better the world would be! People could not criticize each other.”
“_I_ think it would,” I said, “and I am glad you think so, too; for if
every one believed that, no one could condemn another, any more than you
could condemn your own sore finger. You might say: ‘My finger is sore,’
but you wouldn’t say: ‘My finger is very wicked, and I hate it.’”
“I believe that,” said Marian. “I am convinced mentally, but I don’t
feel it. I don’t think that I could live it yet.”
Virginia asked whether she might say for us “Abou ben Adhem,” which
expressed our idea of man and God. And she said it for us. We were all
silent for a few moments. Then I said: “And the love of even more than
man, of all creatures, of all the world.”
Marian admitted that she did not love animals. Ruth said she did. Marian
seems distressed by the fact that she cannot be perfect at once. That is
what she means when she says she is mentally convinced, but doesn’t feel
it yet. Alfred feels the same lack. These ambitious children!
“Now,” I said, “I want you to feel certain and convinced of each thing
as we go on. We all agree at present, don’t we?”
“Yes,” they answered.
“I feel as if something must be wrong, because we all agree,” I went on,
“and yet I know you are independent thinkers. Are you sure that all bad
is a condition of good, even all physical bad, such things as accidents
and loss? For instance, railroads are of value—why?”
None knew the true reason but Ruth. She said they brought nations
together.
“And the accidents on railroads,” I said, “are the price of that
progress, a price we have to pay for perfecting that system. It would be
better to avoid all accidents—as I hope we shall do one day—but,
meanwhile, we would rather take the risk than not have railroads. No one
can be convinced, however, that all bad is a condition of good, until
tried.”
“I have been tried,” answered Virginia.
They all thought themselves convinced, except Alfred. He said: “It might
be true nine times, but the tenth time it might not be true.”
“Then,” said Henry, “you would believe it were true the tenth time, even
though you didn’t understand how.”
“No,” I answered; “he would test it the tenth time. We will _know_ each
thing.”
Now we re-examined our conviction on all these questions, and went over
each point again. We probed the possibilities of atheism, and saw that
no one who faced things could be an atheist, that atheism was the result
of laziness, fear or vanity. Either a man feared to face the truth, or
could not bear to admit how little he knew. And we saw that an atheist
might be a very good man, only he would build his morality on a
philosophy he did not understand or examine. We might be good without
any religious convictions, but this conviction, this belief, would give
us a reason for goodness, and make us strong in the face of uncertainty,
temptation and trial. Henry said things were worth while only when they
were hard to do.
“There,” said I, “you have a proof of our instinctive feeling that pain
is a necessary part of progress.”
Virginia said she wanted to believe what would make her happy; that she
would choose the optimistic faith. I answered her I wanted to believe
the truth, happy or unhappy, but I had come to the conclusion at last
that the truth was very good. I told them how at their age I had been in
great doubt, how I had thought the truth might be very bad.
“Pain is real,” I said, “but we will not fear to face that, or anything
bitter, when we know it to be a condition of going onward.”
Virginia said I was shaping her thought for her. I reminded her how she
used to be my “little disciple.” All the others, and especially Marian,
said that this meeting was far more satisfying than the last; that we
had reached something definite. Marian said: “I seem to see already what
we will have to say on every subject, but we shall have no end of things
to speak of.”
THIRD MEETING
Florence and Henry were delayed and did not arrive until after four. But
before that we had already gathered about the table, and found it hard
to restrain ourselves from beginning the discussion. I said to the
children that I thought we would not speak of immortality to-day, as
there was too much that came before. I asked them whether they were
anxious to get to it. They were very anxious. Florence said: “It is such
an important subject.” Ruth said: “I believe we will all agree on
immortality.” I answered her that just there I thought we might disagree
most. Marian said she had definite ideas on the subject. I can see that
Henry has indefinite and theological ideas.
I then read aloud the little paper Marian had written on our talk of the
previous week:
“On Sunday, October 18th, our club, the Seekers, held its second
meeting. We first discussed our ideas of God. We reached the conclusion
that God is our divine self, that through God we can perceive, but we
cannot perceive God. This seems to me a very beautiful idea. I think our
discussion on this subject was particularly nice, because we did not try
to limit God by any attributes, for he is infinite. We also discussed
progress. I understood it much better this week than last. The aim of
progress is to reach a clear understanding of our fellow-beings; we hope
that, sometime, there will be sympathy and understanding among all men,
for we each have a divine self, which will not reach perfection until it
is in perfect accord with all the other people’s. We discussed good and
evil, and decided that evil is that which we outgrow, and which might
once have seemed good, but which now seems bad because we have found
something better. Good is the progress that we are making toward our
goal of common understanding. Unhappiness and accidents, etc., are
incidental to progress, and will occur less and less frequently. I
enjoyed this meeting of the club very much.”
We now reviewed all the conclusions we had reached. Then I was glad to
have them speak once more of good and bad, and ask many questions. Ruth
said she was not sure of being convinced. She said: “I talked it over
with mother. It seems to me I sometimes put my thought into your words,
and imagine you have said what I mean, when perhaps you haven’t. Please
repeat that again, about good and bad.” Ruth is always afraid she may be
weakening in her own ideas, and tries not to be convinced. I strove to
impress upon her that my idea might include hers.
I said: “You see now that the thought I want to give you is an
unanswerable religion, which is not new, but larger than all the old
beliefs.”
Marian asked: “Large enough to include them all?”
“Yes, just that. Did you ever think of the old word, holiness,
h-o-l-i-n-e-s-s? I know another word that to us would mean holiness, a
different holiness.”
“You mean w-h-o-l-e?” said Marian.
“Yes, to be whole and complete.”
Now as we spoke again of good and bad, we came upon the interesting
question of disease.
“How can that be explained as a part of progress?” asked Marian.
Virginia, with her usual misconception on this subject, said that
disease helped us forward because through it scientists came to know and
understand many things about life. Henry, still more off the track, said
that disease led to a knowledge of medicine.
“Henry’s idea,” I answered, “we cannot consider, because, of course, the
only virtue of medical skill is that it cures disease, and if there were
not disease we would not need medical progress. But Virginia’s idea is
true in a certain sense. It is quite true that disease impelled people
to use the microscope, to discover themselves physically, to learn of
the infinitude of minute creatures in the universe; and so it led to a
larger knowledge of life, because the infinitely little makes our world
just as vast as the infinitely big. But this only shows that we made
progress out of disease, as we make progress out of all things, because
the will of life, the will to go forward, is within us. It does not show
how disease itself can be the result or price of progress. That is a
difficult question, but I seem to see it clearly, and I will try to
explain it to you. None of you, except perhaps Virginia and Alfred, have
a clear idea of evolution, and I would like to spend one meeting in
explaining it, because it is so essential. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” they said.
“But I can’t go into this question of disease without explaining
something of evolution to you now. I will try to make it clear: Each
individual is different. As animals progressed and went forward, those
parts which were newest were also more unstable, because they were ready
to change more. These parts were most apt to become diseased, or,
rather, weakened, because progress might be in any direction, and had to
feel its way.” It was difficult for me to explain this to the children,
who were so utterly unprepared, and I said much more. Even so, I don’t
think Marian and Ruth understood it thoroughly, and I shall have to
repeat it when we speak of evolution. I said I did not believe the germs
of disease ever entered any part unless that part were weakened or
imperfect. I said: “Take as an example the human brain. Suppose that two
children were born with brains slightly different from others. One might
turn out to be a genius, and the other to be eccentric and even insane,
because progress feels its way in all directions. So disease, coming to
the new unstable parts, would be the necessary cost of progress.”
Virginia said: “Young and new things are always most delicate. I had a
palm with many leaves, and one was new. Now, the palm was left for a day
against the window pane, and the young leaf died from the pressure of
the glass, which did not at all hurt the old leaves.” This poetical and
delightful little figure of speech made me wonder whether Virginia
understood just what I meant.
We went over the question of good and bad, to Ruth’s satisfaction. And
then I asked Henry, whose understanding of it I doubted, to tell me in
what three ways the bad was a part of good and progress. His answer was
clear and true:
“There is the bad, which is only bad because we now possess or know
something better, the old good we have left behind us. Then there is the
bad which is the direct result of progress and growth, such as accidents
and disease. Then there is the use of bad which we make, to turn it into
good, such as the knowledge we get from it, and, as Virginia said
before, the sympathy and love which grow out of misfortune.”
“Now,” I said, “I would like some of you to tell me what you mean by
those two words, matter and spirit.”
Henry, Virginia and Ruth were the only ones ready to answer.
Henry said that spirit is the soul. He quoted from a Sunday-school
formula: “The spirit of man is in the image of God, and immortal.”
I said that those words did not mean anything definite to me. They might
be true, but I did not understand them. Ruth said she did, and it was
what she meant; that matter was, like the bad, something to be overcome
and left behind.
“I think,” said Virginia, “that matter is the tool of spirit; the body
is the servant of the mind.”
They began to argue, but I stopped them, saying: “I will first tell you
what I think. Is there any matter without form? Has not all matter form,
and is it not, therefore, as it were, something like an idea in the
mind?”
Henry wanted to deny this, but thought a moment, and admitted that all
matter had some form.
I went on: “I am a spirit, that is, a self; and I know things only in my
spirit, because I see, hear, touch them. So I don’t believe in matter,
so called, at all. I think that our forms, our bodies, and all forms in
the universe are an expression of spirit or self.” I said expression was
the means for reaching unity, that creatures could not come together
unless they expressed themselves to each other, and that I believed all
expression was for this purpose. I said, what is called matter, the
material conditions of life, are the result of the action of spirit; our
bodies, which seem so solid and material, are constantly changed, are
not at all the same as matter, but only in form; we are reborn each day
according to the spirit. I said that in this sense matter, so-called,
was indeed something we were constantly leaving behind us, that every
material condition was the result of a previous state of mind. This is
true of all human things, and we cannot help thinking it is true of
universal things. We know that fire burns, that planets whirl through
space, that water runs, and we cannot help feeling these expressions of
force to be the expression of something akin to will and spirit.
Virginia said, then there must be something much more than human
sympathy and understanding, which we long to reach. I answered, I
believed so, but I had not wanted to suggest it to them.
I said that all our present bodily conditions, the seemingly unalterable
conditions called material, were the expression of will and spirit in
the past, either of ours or others; that our very existence here, the
existence of everything, was the result of will and desire.
Marian said: “I don’t think it is just that we should suffer and be,
because of another’s will and spirit.”
Virginia answered: “It _is_ fair. We are part of the whole.”
“That is so,” said Marian. “Of course.” It was a full and sufficient
answer.
I said I believed that disease could be prevented, even if not cured, by
thought, because will and desire controlled the body. I said: “We have
our own destiny in our hands, we are free to do as we choose with the
future, because will shapes everything.” I was delighted to find that
the children had never heard the silly discussions about free will, and
did not have to have that bugbear driven out. I said: “We are a part of
the will of life.”
As another illustration of idea coming before form, I spoke of plants
and seeds, how in the seed is the possibility, the idea of an infinity
of trees.
Virginia said: “In them spirit seems to be asleep, for it must be
there.” She said all things slept sometimes, and while they slept the
spirit worked in them.
Ruth was not in the least convinced. Indeed, the thing was not
overclear. She said: “I still think matter is something to be overcome,
something that binds us. Surely we will sometime be spirits without
matter, altogether spiritual.”
I tried to show them that spirit without expression would be
unthinkable, that though expression might not be what we call matter, it
would still be some expression. I said: “Expression frees us.”
That was puzzling, and needed more explanation.
I asked Henry: “What is the object and aim of life?”
He answered vaguely: “I suppose it is spirit.”
“Now, what do you mean by that?” I asked.
He answered: “I suppose we don’t know what it is until we reach the
truth.” Evidently he did not, but all the others did. They all spoke at
once to explain to him that the object of life was complete
understanding and love.
I said: “That is what expression is to get for us, for we express
ourselves in form and thought, so that we may understand and be
understood. And that is what I meant by freedom. I meant understanding,
love and perfect adjustment. In one sense matter is binding, because we
want more freedom. Matter, so called, is the physical condition which
our will made in the past, and which we want already to surpass. Suppose
that a man wrote a book in which he put all his ideas, and that when he
finished the book he was forbidden to write or speak again; his ideas
would grow afterward, and as he could not express them, he would think
himself limited and bound by the book he had written. So material
conditions are binding only because we want still more freedom, though
they themselves were freedom at the time of their creation. In that
sense, Ruth, you might call the body something which the spirit
constantly wants to leave behind, because it is creating new forms for
itself.”
Marian said: “It is as if there were a house with many rooms, and we
thought we wanted to go only into the first; but each door made us long
for the next room, and the next, so that we could never be satisfied.”
“And if one door were locked,” I said, “we would consider ourselves
sadly bound, though we had thought we wished to go only so far. Suppose
a man made a statue, that statue would be an expression of his spirit.
But if the next instant he wanted to change it, to make, say, the lines
of the arm more perfect, he could not do so by willing. He would have to
make a new statue.”
“But that is different,” said Ruth. “The stuff he works in is still
matter.”
I tried to explain how all creation is an inter-change of form, a
flowing and influence. I tried to show them how all things whatsoever,
even thoughts, are forms, and all form an expression.
Virginia said: “Those who write books, or do any great work, are
immortal in that, because of their influence.” I answered her that all
of us were immortal in this sense, that each thing had endless
influence.
Marian asked the one unanswerable question, and I was delighted. She
said: “Why was the Divine Self ever divided? How did we ever happen to
need bodies and expression? Why did it not all grow together?”
She saw that contrast was needed for recognition. But why, she wondered,
was anything at all? I answered her: “We said the other day that it did
not matter whether the search for good were infinite or not. Neither
does it concern us to know the unknowable, whether or how the awaking
world began. But we do know it is awakening, what is the direction, what
is the aim and desire of life. To me no more seems needed. We know how
to go forward.”
“That is true,” she said. She spoke of old age and mental decay. She
said she did not see why people lost, for no reason, the progress they
seemed to have made. I answered her that I did not think they lost it,
unless they did not try to keep it; that it is a thing one must work for
at each moment.
“But why do they stop trying?” she asked.
“I don’t think they stop,” I said. “I think they never did try, but in
youth such people merely had more stimulation from without.”
“Now, my grandfather,” she said, “was an intelligent man, and he is
losing his memory.”
“Is he losing the valuable thing? Does he love you less, understand you
less? Are you sure the memory he is losing is the thing he still needs?”
She saw what I meant. She was struck by it.