CONCERNING AN ARGUMENT
SEATED on a rock, some half-dozen yards or so in his rear, was David
Delancey, calmly gazing out to sea.
“How long have you been there?” demanded an astonished Corin.
“Oh, twenty minutes or thereabouts,” returned David. He got up from the
rock and came to seat himself nearer Corin. “I thought you were dozing.”
“I was wide awake,” returned Corin with some dignity.
It is not certain whether the imputation of sleepiness had hurt his
susceptible feelings, or whether it was merely irritation at finding
himself observed when he thought himself alone, at all events there was
the faintest trace of asperity in his manner.
David regarded him perplexed. The slight asperity was obvious. But what
on earth had caused it?
And then, whatever the cause, Corin felt a trifle ashamed.
“But what,” he demanded, waving his hand seawards, “are the mad things
up to? What possible pleasure or profit can they find in tumbling head
first into the water? If it weren’t,” concluded Corin solemnly, “that
I conceive them to be brainless, I should imagine that they would be
suffering by now from violent headaches.”
“Oh,” responded David laughing, “they are just diving.”
“Just diving?” echoed Corin. “But why from such a height? Why don’t
they get lower to the water, first, if they want to dive?”
“Ask me another,” said David, smiling lazily. “I suppose it’s habit,
nature, whatever you like to call it.”
Corin shook his head, as who should say, given a free hand he’d instil
vastly better habits. Aloud he said:
“This is an extraordinarily pleasant spot.”
“It’s so jolly lonely,” said David musingly.
“Therein,” remarked Corin, “lies one of its greatest attractions.”
And he quoted softly, “Il y a toujours dans le monde quelque chose de
trop--l’homme.”
“What’s that?” demanded David bluntly.
Corin obligingly translated.
“Humph!” Obviously David demurred at this statement. “I don’t
altogether see what would be the good of the world being pleasant if
there weren’t someone to enjoy it.”
“There would be,” said Corin, still softly, “always oneself.”
David’s eyes twinkled.
“I guess a world run for one individual alone would prove a bit over
isolated,” he remarked dryly. “Also, the question of which individual
might crop up.”
Corin sighed. The man was really a little too literal. He shifted his
ground.
“If,” he said didactically, “men lived together in harmony, the soul
would not crave for isolation.”
Had John been present, it is probable that ribald laughter had greeted
this remark. He knew these moods. David did not.
“That’s true enough,” he responded gravely, “but who is to set the
keynote? where’s your conductor of the band?”
“If,” said Corin, addressing himself to the sparkling water, “each
man lived to the highest within him, there would be no need for any
conductor.”
David frowned. He granted the high-soundingness of the statement, you
may be sure, but somehow it did not strike him as altogether practical.
He fell back on his band simile.
“A fellow,” he remarked, “may fancy he’s got a jolly good tune to play,
and go at it for all he’s worth, but if it doesn’t fit in with the
rest, it stands to reason a jumble will follow. If you could get hold
of the right conductor, I fancy you’d do a precious deal better by
playing second fiddle, or even by striking a note on a triangle every
now and then, than by rattling off the best tune ever invented on your
own.”
“My dear man,” cried Corin eagerly, “your theory is sound enough in
a way; but if a man really lives to the highest in him, he’ll merely
strike notes on a triangle if that’s his job.”
David shook his head.
“Maybe,” he said deliberately, “but there’s always human nature
to reckon with, and there’s a good bit of difference between a man
thinking a thing the highest, and it being the highest. You set out to
do a thing thinking it’s the right thing to do, and when you get a good
clinch on it, I’m blamed if you don’t begin to wonder if it was your
job after all.”
Again Corin sighed, and with an almost aggressive patience.
“If you have honestly believed it to be the right thing to do,” he
remarked carefully, “it is the right thing to do. Shakespeare never
made a truer statement than when he said, ‘There’s nothing either good
or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ There’s the sum of all religion.”
“Then,” said David dryly, “religion is a mighty elusive thing to
tackle. There are some Indians--I forget which brand their religion
is--think it right to treat the poor little widows as scum on the
face of the earth, but I don’t fancy any amount of thinking can make
it right to treat any woman that way. There’s injustice somewhere if
that’s the way to deal with them.”
“It’s karma,” said Corin succinctly.
David pitched a pebble seawards.
“I’ve heard you use that word before,” he remarked, “but for the life
of me I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
Here was Corin’s chance. You may be sure he jumped at it. I’ve vowed
I’ll not follow his meditative flights in this direction, but I fear me
I’ll be bound to transcribe his speeches.
“Karma,” quoth he, “shows us clearly the justice of the whole of the
so-called injustice of the world.”
David grinned.
“It’s not what you might call a little subject,” he remarked.
“Yet,” retorted Corin, “it is simplicity itself. No evil suffered by
man, woman, or child is undeserved. It is suffered as punishment for
sin committed.”
David looked down towards the sea.
“A baby can’t sin,” he said quietly, “yet I’ve seen some poor little
beggars mishandled in a way that would make your blood boil.”
Corin shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll allow that there are brutes in the world,” he admitted, “but
there’s no undeserved suffering. What such a child suffered, it
suffered for sins committed in a past life.”
David turned an amazed face upon him.
“Past life!” he ejaculated.
“Of course,” said Corin calmly. “How do you interpret such suffering if
it isn’t inflicted for sins committed in a past life? Wouldn’t it be
horrible injustice otherwise? You don’t, I suppose, imagine the Powers
above to be unjust?”
“No,” said David simply. “I’ve never gone as far as that.”
“Then how on earth are you going to explain the apparent injustice of
the world?” cried Corin. “Can’t you see that it apparently reeks with
injustice?”
“Oh, Lord, yes! I see that fast enough,” said David grimly.
“Then how do you explain it?” demanded Corin.
“I’ve never tried to,” said David quietly.
“But, good heavens, man, what’s your intellect given you for if you
don’t use it?” almost shouted Corin. “Why, if I couldn’t see some plan
in what the Powers above had arranged, I’d have chucked up the sponge
long ago.”
David looked silently towards the far-off horizon. There was a queer
little smile on his lips.
“Well?” demanded Corin.
David turned.
“I guess,” he said slowly, “you’d think a soldier a mighty poor sort of
fellow who chucked up fighting because he didn’t understand the plans
of his general. I guess God isn’t going to give each of us a special
interview, and explain His plan of campaign, any more than a general is
going to call each private to his tent and explain his before he sends
him into battle. Of course if you figure out a plan in your own mind,
and fight thinking it’s the right one, it’s a precious deal better
than chucking up the sponge, but all the same, if you’re stuck on your
own plan, you may go beyond your job by a long chalk, and it’s best
to leave plans to your general. The only thing that matters is to get
your orders clear, and with the muddle around you that’s not over easy.
Anyhow, I don’t find it over easy.”
“But,” remarked Corin coolly, “if, as you maintain, no private is
supposed to understand his general’s plan, and he is not to follow his
own judgment, from whom is he to receive orders?”
“Officers,” returned David promptly.
Corin snorted. It was not exactly an ill-bred snort, you understand;
nevertheless it was one.
“And will you kindly tell me where those officers are to be found?” he
questioned loftily. “Look here, man, let’s drop simile for the moment.
If you maintain that we human beings are incapable of understanding the
plans of the Powers that be, how are we going to shape the course of
our actions? We’ve got to work on some scheme, if we don’t drift. Who’s
going to interpret that scheme to us, if we don’t interpret it for
ourselves?”
“That,” returned David, “is exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”
Corin looked at him commiseratingly.
“My dear man,” he said gently, “you’ll find that your figuring will
bring you to but one conclusion. You’ve got to interpret for yourself.
If you go off to ask other people, what will you find? Every man will
tell you that his way is the right way. A Calvinist will talk of
predestination, a Congregationalist will talk of conversion, a Catholic
will tell you to go and confess your sins to a priest, and a member
of the established Church of England--well, the Lord only knows what
he’ll tell you. It’ll be a toss-up on the special species you light on.”
“But,” said David firmly, “there must be truth somewhere.”
“Of course there is,” returned Corin magnificently. “There’s a modicum
of truth in every religion. Divest them of their forms and you’ll get
vastly nearer the whole truth. I tell you, there’s the Divine in every
man. The various churches have set up God as a kind of bogey wherewith
to frighten naughty children. God exists, but not separate from us, as
the churches teach, a judge to allot punishment or reward to a feeble
humanity; He exists in each one of us. Each one of us is an actual part
of the Divine, and thereby is his own arbitrator, ruler, and judge.
And, that being so, it is absurd to imagine that we are incapable of
understanding the Divine plan. Of course we understand it. To believe,
to know, that, is merely common-sense.”
David was silent.
“Isn’t it?” urged Corin.
David turned towards him.
“Well, if you really want my opinion,” he said slowly, “I’m blamed if I
don’t call it merely pride.”
Corin stared.
“Well, of all the--” he began.
He got no further. Where was the use of arguing with a man who
voluntarily padlocked his intellect within an iron box, so to speak. It
would be mere waste of breath, a futile expenditure of his energies.
Yet, so reflected Corin, he had thought so much better of him. Ah,
well, the advance guard of a movement cannot expect to have the ruck
too closely in his wake. It is only when the path through superstition
has been laid fair and open, that one can expect the common herd to
follow.
“You’re a very young soul,” he said indulgently.
David gazed imperturbably out to sea.