THE OPENER OF DOORS
“_Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee and do not try to
make the Universe a blind alley._”--EMERSON’S JOURNAL (1841).
There are certain minds which have exercised a vast influence over
the thought of the world, as constructors of intellectual systems.
Their ambition has been to reduce all things to a formula. They become
masters of existing knowledge and arrange it in orderly fashion.
Thus Thomas Aquinas summed up the thought of the middle ages in a
solid theology to be received by all who came after him. John Calvin,
with lawyer-like logic, did the same thing for sixteenth-century
Protestantism. Herbert Spencer, with prodigious industry, gathered
an immense number of facts and attempted to bring them all into an
agreement with his own scientific formula.
Up to a certain point the system-maker is a helper to all those who
would live a reasonable intellectual life. He shows us where to put our
facts and to a certain degree how to use them. The difficulty comes
when new facts are discovered which do not fit into the system, or when
in the course of our intellectual development we come upon a fresh
point of view.
Then the system becomes a blind alley. We are led into it by a
perfectly logical process, but there is no logical way out of it. The
mind goes round and round and is conscious of the futility of its own
effort. The universe is narrowed to the dimensions of a rigid creed.
The system now shuts out more of reality than it explains.
It is when we become conscious of the dangers of making the universe a
blind alley and becoming entrapped in rigid forms that we appreciate
the function of philosophers like William James and Bergson. They are
emancipators of the intellect. In their keen criticism of dogmatic
systems they show us a way out. Reality, they assure us, is something
vaster than any definition of it.
Emerson belonged to this little company of emancipators, and he went
about his business in a very simple and yet effective way. He attacked
the assumption that what is usually called consistency is a virtue. No
saying of his is more often quoted, and more generally misunderstood:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a
great soul has nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with
his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and
to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it
contradict everything you said to-day.”
That may be made to seem like a plea for careless and irresponsible
ways of thinking and speaking. What standard are we to have by which
to test our mental processes? I have heard the words quoted as if they
offered an excuse for intellectual lawlessness.
We approach Emerson’s serious meaning only when we emphasize the
adjective. It is a _foolish_ consistency which is the hobgoblin of
little minds. The fundamental question is “_consistency with what?_”
The little mind is thinking not of reality but of its own previous
utterances. When an opinion is to be expressed, it says, “This must be
made consistent with what I said yesterday. Let me see! What did I say
yesterday?” Then, with solemn conscientiousness, yesterday’s statement
is repeated and there is felt the satisfaction which comes with duty
done.
But what if to-day’s fact is really different from that of yesterday,
and can not be expressed accurately by the same phrase? This
possibility the little mind does not entertain. It will not allow
itself to be contradicted, and so the process goes on which St. Paul
describes, “they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing
themselves among themselves, are not wise.”
Emerson’s real plea is for consistency. But we must be consistent not
with a form of words which we have adopted, but with a living reality
which we encounter day by day.
What have you seen to-day? What have you done? What new aspect of the
universe has become clear to you? What are the facts revealed in your
present consciousness? These are the questions that are asked of a
person who is using his mind. And his answers are valuable only as they
are simple and direct.
In a court of justice this simplicity is required. The witness who
is trying to make his answers consistent with one another and with a
preconceived theory is sure to come to grief. The cross-questioner will
discover flaws in the evidence. The only safe course is to tell the
facts as they occurred.
Most of our intellectual confusion comes from the attempts to arrange
our opinions according to an artificial order. The catechism is
arranged in advance of experience. The questions follow one another in
logical order, and each question has its appropriate answer. It is all
very satisfactory until the answers are sharply challenged. How do we
happen to know so much? How are we able to answer so glibly?
To Emerson the chief value of a catechism lay in the questions, not in
the answers. That the deepest and most persistent questions have no
satisfactory answers did not depress him. It only proved that both the
mind that asks and the universe which delays the answer are greater
than we thought. Their meaning can not be expressed in any form of
words. He hears the Sphinx saying to the Soul:
“Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply.”
The joy of the follower of Truth and Beauty is wonderfully expressed
in the little poem called “Forerunners.” We are out-of-doors, and
the air is bracing, and the distant hills are alluring. What does it
matter that we do not catch up with our “happy guides”? It is enough
that we are free to follow. Let others sing of the satisfactions of
achievement. Emerson is satisfied with a life that is a continual quest.
“Long I followed happy guides,
I could never reach their sides;
Their step is forth, and, ere the day
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Keen my sense, my heart was young,
Right good-will my sinews strung,
But no speed of mine avails
To hunt upon their shining trails.
On and away, their hasting feet
Make the morning proud and sweet;
Flowers they strew--I catch the scent;
Or tone of silver instrument
Leaves on the wind melodious trace;
Yet I could never see their face.
On eastern hills I see their smokes,
Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
I met many travellers
Who the road had surely kept;
They saw not my fine revellers,--
These had crossed them while they slept.
Some had heard their fair report,
In the country or the court.
Fleetest couriers alive
Never yet could once arrive,
As they went or they returned,
At the house where these sojourned.
Sometimes their strong speed they slacken,
Though they are not overtaken;
In sleep their jubilant troop is near,--
I tuneful voices overhear;
It may be in wood or waste,--
At unawares ’tis come and past.
Their near camp my spirit knows
By signs gracious as rainbows.
I thenceforward, and long after,
Listen for their harp-like laughter,
And carry in my heart, for days,
Peace that hallows rudest ways.”
It is not merely the poetic imagination which opens the doors into an
enchanted country where one may wander endlessly. The sober reason has
also an emancipatory power. There are realities which lie beyond the
limits which the dogmatist defines. They may not be logically justified
but they are nevertheless a part of the order of the universe. When we
cease to dogmatize we become conscious of an order more wonderful than
that which we had imagined possible. Things exist side by side which
we had supposed to be absolutely incompatible. We can not logically
reconcile them, but there they are.
“The world refuses to be analyzed by addition and subtraction. When
we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books
with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the
hope that, in the course of a few years, we shall have condensed into
our encyclopedia the net value of all the theories at which the world
has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get no completeness,
and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs will
never meet.
“Neither by detachment, neither by aggregation, is the integrity of
the intellect transmitted to its works, but by a vigilance which
brings the intellect in its greatness and best state to operate every
moment. It must have the same wholeness which nature has. Although
no diligence can rebuild the universe in a model, by the best
accumulation or disposition of details, yet does the world reappear in
miniature in every event, so that all the laws of nature may be read
in the smallest fact. The intellect must have the like perfection in
its apprehension and in its works.”
Along with Emerson’s insistence on an absolute freedom in thinking
we must remember his emphasis on the principle of identity which he
discovers everywhere. The universe, he continually tells us is not a
blind alley, neither is it a mere welter of conflicting forces. It is
marvelously complicated, but touch it at any point and you will find
it consistent with itself. Could we understand one part of it we would
have the key to all mysteries.
“The universe is represented in every one of its particles. Everything
in nature contains all the powers of nature. Everything is made
of one hidden stuff; as the naturalist sees one type under every
metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a running man, a fish as a
swimming man, a bird as a flying man, a tree as a rooted man. Each
new form repeats not only the main character of the type, but part
for part all the details, all the aims, furtherances, hindrances,
energies, and whole system of every other. Every occupation, trade,
art, transaction, is a compend of the world and a correlative of every
other. Each one is an entire emblem of human life; of its good and
ill, its trials, its enemies, its course, and its end. And each one
must somehow accommodate the whole man, and recite all his destiny.
“The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find
the animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears,
taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction
that take hold on eternity--all find room to consist in the small
creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of
omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss
and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into
every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so
the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation.”