PHILOSOPHY GONE MAD
One day it became known that Sibyl Dudley had visited Paradise Valley
and was stopping in the town. She had ridden out to call on Mary
Jasper.
Justin carried the unpleasant news to Clayton.
“I hope I shan’t see her,” said Clayton, nervously. He had received
the news in his study, where he had been writing. Now he laid down his
pen. “I hope it isn’t her intention to call here. But tell me about
it; why has she visited Mary?”
“That I don’t know. Lucy saw her as she left Jasper’s. She will find
out for me.”
“And Mary? I haven’t heard about her for some time.”
“She is very much changed. You would hardly know her. She was in bed
nearly a month after Ben’s death. But I’ve thought she looked better
lately.”
“Youth is strong,” said Clayton; “it can survive much. But I am
surprised that Mrs. Dudley has called there.”
When Justin had nothing further to communicate Clayton turned again to
his writing. But that night he called Justin into his study, a place
in which Justin had passed many pleasant hours. Clayton was
hollow-cheeked and nervous. The news of the coming of Sibyl to
Paradise Valley had not been without its evil effect.
“You are well, Justin?” he inquired solicitously.
“Quite well,” said Justin, with some show of surprise.
“I hoped so; but things have gone so wrong here lately that I worry
about every one.”
He took up some sheets of paper on which he had been writing.
“In our latest talk I was telling you something about the new views I
have worked out concerning spiritual matters. I told you I had come to
the conclusion that the laws which apply to the material world apply
also to the spiritual world. In the material world we have the law of
evolution. We do not know how life begins, but we know how it
develops. Applying this to the spiritual world, we may say that though
we cannot know how spiritual life begins it must develop after it
begins. And development implies different grades or orders of beings;
name them angels, or what you will.”
“You know I said I wasn’t able to agree with you about all those
things,” Justin reminded, gently.
“That doesn’t matter; it is nothing to me who believes or disbelieves.
Whatever is truth is truth, if it is never accepted by any one. I
simply work out these results for my own satisfaction, and I like to
talk them over with you.”
Justin settled in his chair to listen. This new view of Clayton’s
seemed strange, but it was sure to be presented in an interesting
manner.
“I think I have made a startling discovery.” Clayton’s eyes shone and
his manner astonished Justin. “In the material world man is the
highest product of evolution, though he has not reached the highest
possible state. In the spiritual world, which must be more advanced,
the highest state has been reached, and he who has reached it we call
God. The one best fitted to reach it of all spiritual beings has
reached it, and has become absolute. Yet every spiritual being is
entitled to reach that state, if he is worthy, each in turn. Being
infinite, God could prevent that, and occupy the throne forever. The
common belief is that he does so occupy it. But, being just, as well
as infinite, he abdicates—suicides, if I may use the word without
irreverence—so that another spirit, becoming perfect through ages of
development, may take the throne; and when he does so we have what is
popularly conceived of as ‘the end of the world’—the universe goes
back in the twinkling of an eye to fire-mist and chaos, and all
tilings begin over again. That is the great day of fire, when all
things are consumed; the day of which the Revelator wrote when he
said, ‘And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled
together.’”
There was something in Clayton’s eyes which Justin had never seen
before, and which he did not like; it forced him to combat Clayton’s
astonishing views.
“But the logic of the situation compels that belief,” Clayton
insisted.
“Then I refuse to accept the premises.”
“But you can’t!” His earnestness grew. “See here!” He read over some
of the things he had written. “It comes to that, and there is no way
of getting round it.”
“I get round it by refusing to believe any of it.”
“And Justin!” The dark eyes shone with a still brighter light. “I put
the question to you:—If God, the Infinite, may commit suicide for a
good reason, why may not a man? I put it to you.”
Seeing the black thought which lay back of these words Justin began to
reason with Clayton, combating the idea with all the vigor and
eloquence at his command, and years of training under Clayton had made
him a good reasoner. But he could not break the chain of false logic
which Clayton had forged, or at least he could not make Clayton see
that it was broken, though he talked long and earnestly.
Justin passed an uneasy night, waking at intervals with a nervous
start, and listening for something, he hardly knew what. Once, hearing
Clayton stirring, he sat up in bed, shivering, ready to leap out and
force his way into Clayton’s room, if it seemed necessary. He was
alarmed, and he thought he had ground for his alarm. The coming of
Sibyl to the valley he charged with being responsible for Clayton’s
strange and changed manner. Sibyl’s malevolent influence seemed to lie
over everything that came near her, like the blight of the fabled
upas.
In the morning Clayton was very quiet, and even listless. He did not
recur to the talk of the previous evening, though Justin momentarily
expected him to, and was forging more arguments to combat this new and
distressing theory which had wormed its way into Clayton’s troubled
mind. During the day, when there were so many things to hold his
attention, Clayton was not likely to give so much thought to Sibyl and
his new conclusions; he had a number of patients, including Davison,
who demanded his attention, and as a physician he threw himself into
his work without reserve or thought of himself. Therefore, Justin felt
easier when Clayton saddled his horse and rode away to visit a sick
man, who was one of the newer settlers in the valley.