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diff --git a/29277.txt b/29277.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..990c29c --- /dev/null +++ b/29277.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4872 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mountain Meditations, by L. Lind-af-Hageby + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mountain Meditations + and some subjects of the day and the war + +Author: L. Lind-af-Hageby + +Release Date: June 30, 2009 [EBook #29277] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOUNTAIN MEDITATIONS *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, adhere and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +MOUNTAIN +MEDITATIONS + +AND SOME SUBJECTS OF +THE DAY AND THE WAR + + +_By_ L. LIND-AF-HAGEBY + +AUTHOR OF "AUGUST STRINDBERG: +THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT" + + +[Illustration: Publisher's device] + + +LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. +RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 + + + + +_First published in 1917_ + + +(_All rights reserved_) + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +MOUNTAIN-TOPS 7 + +THE BORDERLAND 44 + +REFORMERS 84 + +NATIONALITY 131 + +RELIGION IN TRANSITION 179 + + + + +MOUNTAIN-TOPS + + Freres de l'aigle! Aimez la montagne sauvage! + Surtout a ces moments ou vient un vent d'orage. + VICTOR HUGO. + + +I belong to the great and mystic brotherhood of mountain worshippers. +We are a motley crowd drawn from all lands and all ages, and we are +certainly a peculiar people. The sight and smell of the mountain affect +us like nothing else on earth. In some of us they arouse excessive +physical energy and lust of conquest in a manner not unlike that which +suggests itself to the terrier at the sight of a rat. We must master the +heights above, and we become slaves to the climbing impulse, itinerant +purveyors of untold energy, marking the events of our lives on peaks and +passes. We may merit to the full Ruskin's scathing indictment of those +who look upon the Alps as soaped poles in a bear-garden which we set +ourselves "to climb and slide down again with shrieks of delight," we +may become top-fanatics and record-breakers, "red with cutaneous +eruption of conceit," but we are happy with a happiness which passeth +the understanding of the poor people in the plains. + +Others experience no acceleration of physical energy, but a strange +rousing of all their mental faculties. Prosaic, they become +poetical--the poetry may be unutterable, but it is there; commonplace, +they become eccentric; severely practical, they become dreamers and +loiterers upon the hillside. The sea, the wood, the meadow cannot +compete with the mountain in egging on the mind of man to incredible +efforts of expression. The songs, the rhapsodies, the poems, the +aesthetic ravings of mountain worshippers have a dionysian flavour which +no other scenery can impart. + +Yesterday I left the turmoil of a conference in Geneva and reached home +amongst my delectable mountains. I took train for the foot of the hills +and climbed for many hours through drifts of snow. This morning I have +been deliciously mad. First I greeted the sun from my open chalet window +as it rose over the range on my left and lit up the great glacier before +me, throwing the distant hills into a glorious dream-world of blue and +purple. Then I plunged into the huge drifts of clean snow which the +wind had piled up outside my door. I laughed with joy as I breathed the +pure air, laden with the scent of pines and the diamond-dust of snow. I +never was more alive, the earth was never more beautiful, the heavens +were never nearer than they are to-day. Who says we are prisoners of +darkness? Who says we are puppets of the devil? Who says God must only +be worshipped in creeds and churches? Here are the glories of the +mountains, beauty divine, peace perfect, power unfathomable, love +inexhaustible, a never failing source of hope and light for our +struggling human race. I am vaguely aware of the unreasonableness of my +delirium of mountain joy, but I revel in it. And I sing with Sir Lewis +Morris-- + + More it is than ease, + Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries, + To have seen white presences upon the hills, + To have heard the voices of the eternal gods. + +The emotions engendered by mountain scenery defy analysis. They may be +classified and labelled, but not explained. I turn to my library of +books by mountain-lovers--climbers, artists, poets, scientists. Though +we are solitaries in our communion with the Deity, though we worship in +great spaces of solitude and silence and seek rejuvenescence in utter +human loneliness, we do not despise counsels of sympathy and approval. +The strife rewarded, the ascent accomplished, we are profoundly grateful +for the yodel of human fellowship. And--let me whisper it in +confidence--we do not despise the cooking-pots. For the mountains have a +curious way of lifting you up to the uttermost confines of the spirit +and then letting you down to the lowest dominions of the flesh. + +"Examine the nature of your own emotion (if you feel it) at the sight of +the Alps," says Ruskin, "and you find all the brightness of that emotion +hanging like dew on a gossamer, on a curious web of subtle fancy and +imperfect knowledge." Such a result of our examination would but add to +our confusion. Ruskin's mind was so permeated with adoration of mountain +scenery that his attempts at cool analysis of his own sensations failed, +as would those of a priest who, worshipping before the altar, tried at +the same time to give an analytical account of his state of mind. +Ruskin is the stern high priest of the worshippers of mountains; to him +they are cathedrals designed by their glory and their gloom to lift +humanity out of its baser self into the realization of high destinies. +The fourth volume of _Modern Painters_ was the fount of inspiration from +which Leslie Stephen and the early members of the Alpine Club drank +their first draughts of mountaineering enthusiasm. But the disciples +never reached the heights of the teacher. Listen to the exposition by +the Master of the services appointed to the hills: + +"To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of God's +working--to startle its lethargy with a deep and pure agitation of +astonishment--are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble +architecture, first giving shelter, comfort, and rest; and covered also +with mighty sculpture and painted legend." + +There is a solemn stateliness about Ruskin's descriptions of the +mountains, which in the last passage of the chapter on _The Mountain +Gloom_ rises to the impassioned cadences of the prophet. + +He could tolerate no irreverent spirits in the sanctuary of the +mountain. Leslie Stephen's remark that the Alps were improved by +tobacco smoke became a profanity. One shudders at the thought of the +reprimand which Stevenson would have drawn down upon himself had his +flippant messages from the Alps come before that austere critic. In a +letter to Charles Baxter, Stevenson complained of how "rotten" he had +been feeling "alone with my weasel-dog and my German maid, on the top of +a hill here, heavy mist and thin snow all about me and the devil to pay +in general." And worse still are the lines sent to a friend-- + + Figure me to yourself, I pray-- + A man of my peculiar cut-- + Apart from dancing and deray, + Into an Alpine valley shut; + + Shut in a kind of damned hotel, + Discountenanced by God and man; + The food?--Sir, you would do as well + To cram your belly full of bran. + +The soul of Ruskin was born and fashioned for the mountains. His first +visit to Switzerland in 1833 brought him to "the Gates of the +Hills--opening for me a new life--to cease no more except at the Gates +of the Hills whence one returns not. It is not possible to imagine," he +adds of his first sight of the Alps, "in any time of the world a more +blessed entrance into life for a child of such temperament as mine.... I +went down that evening from the garden terrace of Schaffhausen with my +devotion fixed in all of it that was to be sacred and useful."[1] + + [Footnote 1: _Life of Ruskin_, by Sir Edward Cooke + (George Allen and Unwin Ltd.).] + +That profound stirring of the depths of the soul which Ruskin avowed as +the impetus to his life's work is only possible when the mind is fired +by a devotion to the mountains which brooks no rival. "For, to myself, +mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery," he +wrote in _The Mountain Glory_; "in them, and in the forms of inferior +landscape that lead to them, my affections are wholly bound up." And he +completely and forever reversed Dante's dismal conception of scenery +befitting souls in purgatory by saying that "the best image which the +world can give of Paradise is in the slope of the meadows, orchards, and +cornfields on the sides of a great Alp, with its purple rocks and +eternal snows above." + +No lover of mountains has approached Ruskin in intensity of veneration. +Emile Javelle is not far away. Javelle climbed as by a religious +impulse; his imagination was filled by Alpine shapes; he, like Ruskin, +had forfeited his heart to the invisible snow-maiden that dwells above +the clouds. When Javelle was a child his uncle showed him a collection +of plants, and amongst them the "Androsace ... rochers du Mont Blanc." +This roused the desire to climb; the faded bit of moss with the portion +of earth still clinging to the roots became a sacred relic beckoning him +to the shrine of the white mountain. In the same way Ruskin, mature and +didactic, yet withal so beautifully childlike, tells us "that a wild bit +of ferny ground under a fir or two, looking as if possibly one might see +a hill if one got to the other side, will instantly give me intense +delight because the shadow, the hope of the hills is in them." Both +lovers showed the same disdain of the mere climber. Javelle's Alpine +memories record his sense of aloofness from the general type of member +of the Alpine Club. + +Whilst Ruskin's communion with the mountains found an outlet in prolific +literary output, and a system of art and ethics destined to leaven the +mass of human thought, the infinitude and grandeur of mountain scenery +had a dispersive effect on Javelle's mind. I can so well understand him. +He wandered over the chain of Valais--my mountains (each worshipper has +his special idols)--the Dent du Midi, the Vaudois Alps, and the Bernese +Oberland in search of beauty, more and more beauty. He ascended peak +after peak, attracted by an irresistible force, permeated by a desire +for new points of view, forgetful of the haunts of men. + +And when, between times, Javelle tried to write a book, a great and +learned book on rhetoric, he could never finish it. For seven years he +laboured at preparing it, collecting notes, seeking corroborative +evidence. His Alpine climbing had taught him the elusiveness of isolated +peaks of knowledge. He saw that rhetoric is dependent on aesthetics and +aesthetics on psychology and sociology and philosophy, and all on +anthropology; that there are no frontiers and no finality and no +knowledge which is not relative and imperfect. It was all a question of +different tops and points of view, and so the book was not finished when +he died, still in search of the super-mountain of the widest and +largest view, still crying out his motto, "Onward, higher and higher +still! You must reach the top!" + +Beware, O fellow mountaineers, of such ambitions. For that way madness +lies. I know the lure and the shock. As I write this I sit gazing across +the valley upon the mountain on my right. It is known by the name of the +Black Head; it has a sombre shape, it has never been known to smile. It +towers above me with a cone-shaped top, a figure of might and dominion. +For a dozen years it has checked my tendency to idealistic flights by +reminding me of the inexorable laws of Nature. It is true it does not +conceal the smiling glacier in front of me, with its ceaseless play of +light and shadow, colour and form, but it arrests the fancy by its +massive immovability. And yet, when I leave my little abode of bliss and +wander forth into the heights above (ah, humiliation that there should +be heights above), I find my black top subjected to a process of +shrinking. As I reach the top it ignominiously permits itself to be +flattened out to a mere ridge without a head, a Lilliputian hill +bemoaning its own insignificance. + +Such are the illusions of the mountain play. Yet the climb and the +heights have ever served man as a symbol of the search for certainty. +Lecky invokes the heights as the only safe place from which to view +history and discover the great permanent forces through which nations +are moved to improvement or decay. Schopenhauer compares philosophy to +an Alpine road, often bringing the wanderer to the edge of the chasm, +but rewarding him as he ascends with oblivion of the discords and +irregularities of the world. Nietzsche's wisdom becomes pregnant upon +lonely mountains; he claims that whosoever seeks to enter into this +wisdom "must be accustomed to live on mountain-tops and see beneath him +the wretched ephemeral gossip of politics and national egoism." + +But the mountain-tops make sport of the certainties of philosophers as +well as of those of fools. The safest plan is to ascend them without too +heavy an encumbrance of theories. You may then meet fairies and goblins +who beckon you to the caves of mystery, you may stray into the hills of +Arcadia and meet Pan himself. "Sweet the piping of him who sat upon the +rocks and fluted to the morning sea." You may even find yourself on +Olympus, the mount of a thousand folds, listening to the everlasting +assault upon the Gods by the Titans, sons of strife. And if you are very +patient you may witness Zeus, the lightning-gatherer, pierce the black +clouds and rend the sky, illuminating hill and vale with the fierce +light which makes even the battle of Troy intelligible. + +You may bathe your soul in that Natura Maligna which only reveals its +blessings to pagans and poets. Byron is the chosen bard of the +destructive might of the mountains-- + + Ye toppling crags of ice! + Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down + In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! + . . . . . + The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds + Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, + Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell, + Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, + Heaped with the damned like pebbles. + +He had the nature-mystic's thirst for a touch of the untamed power of +Nature, for communion with the magnificence of death, shaking the +mountain with wind and falling snow, with leaping rock and earth-eating +torrent. Such would fain die that they may experience the joys of being +possessed by Nature. For they have entered on the marriage of life and +death, heaven and hell, and out of the roaring cataclysm of destruction +they rise winged with a new life. + +Whilst the poets chant the awful power of the distant mountain, Byron +comes to us out of the mountain, fashioned by its force, intoxicated by +the wine of its wild life. Mountain climbers meet with strange and +unexpected bedfellows in the course of their wanderings. In his cry for +the baptism of the wild winds of the mountain, Matthew Arnold approaches +Byron closely-- + + Ye storm-winds of Autumn + . . . . . + Ye are bound for the mountains-- + Ah, with you let me go + . . . . . + Hark! fast by the window + The rushing winds go, + To the ice-cumber'd gorges, + The vast seas of snow. + There the torrents drive upward + Their rock-strangled hum, + There the avalanche thunders + The hoarse torrent dumb. + --I come, O ye mountains! + Ye torrents, I come! + +Shelley sings exquisitely of its grandeur, its ceaseless motion; he +voices the wonderment of man before the complex problem of Mont Blanc. +But his mind has never participated in the revels on the mountain, he +has not lost and barely recovered his soul in adventurous crevasses. He +retains something of the old horror of the desolate heights-- + + A desert peopled by the storms alone, + Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, + And the wolf tracks her there. How hideously, + Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, + Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.--Is this the scene + Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young + Ruin? + +There is a trace of the same awe in Coleridge's deathless hymn to Mont +Blanc-- + + On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc, + . . . . . + O dread and silent mount! + +Nearly all the poets have been moved by the primitive sense of their +awe-commanding power. Wordsworth never forgets the blackness, though he +is, above all, the bard of mountain light and sweetness, of warbling +birds and maiden's haycocks. The poet does not lose the blessed gift of +wonder possessed by children and savages. And nothing in Nature can +startle the mind like the sight of a mighty range of mountains. They +recall primitive feelings of fear before the great unknown, they tower +above the human form with a colossal imperturbability which withers our +importance and confuses our standards of value. Victor Hugo never quite +freed himself from the mediaeval dread of the mountains or the mediaeval +speculation on their meaning. His letters to his wife from the Alps and +Pyrenees record his impressions with a painstaking and detailed accuracy +which does not forget the black-and-yellow spider performing somersaults +on an imperceptible thread hung from one brier to another. The emotion +after an hour on the Rigi-Kulm "is immense." "The tourist comes here to +get a point of view; the thinker finds here an immense book in which +each rock is a letter, each lake is a phrase, each village is an accent; +from it arise, like a smoke, two thousand years of memories." + +Here speaks the true panoramic man, the man whose mind attains to +fulness of expression on mountain-tops from which the whole landscape of +life may be contemplated. And yet he notes the "ominous configuration +of Mount Pilatus" and its terrible form, and writes of adjoining +mountains as "these hump-backed, goitred giants crouching around me in +the darkness." The Rigi appears as "a dark and monstrous perpendicular +wall." + +His mind is occupied with the presence of idiots in the Alps. He finds +an explanation: "It is not granted to all intelligences to co-habit with +such marvels and to keep from morning till evening without intoxication +and without stupor, turning a visual radius of fifty leagues across the +earth around a circumference of three hundred." On the Rigi his musings +on the magnificence of the view are checked by the presence of a cretin. +Behold the contrast! An idiot with a goitre and an enormous face, a +blank stare, and a stupid laugh is sole participator with Victor Hugo in +this "marvellous festival of the mountains." + +"Oh! abysm!" he cries; "the Alps were the spectacle, the spectator was +an idiot! I forgot myself in this frightful antithesis: man face to face +with nature; Nature in her superbest aspect, man in his most miserable +debasement. What could be the significance of this mysterious contrast? +What was the sense of this irony in a solitude? Have I the right to +believe that the landscape was designed for him--the cretin, and the +irony for me--the chance visitor?" + +The idiot and the mountain shared, no doubt, a supreme indifference to +the commotion which their proximity had set up in the poet's mind. With +his love of antithesis Hugo had seized the picture of the glories of the +mountain wasting themselves before the gaze of the senseless idiot. +Apart from geographical conditions and hygienic defects there is an +interesting aesthetic problem connected with the presence of idiots in +the mountains. It is not only the idiot who is indifferent to the +beauties of the Alps; the sane and healthy peasant whose eyes wander +over the glaciers and snow-fields as he rests for a few minutes from +hoeing his potatoes is not moved by the sight to ecstatic delight. + +I have many dear friends amongst peasants. They are richly endowed with +common sense and kindness of heart; their brains can compete favourably +with those of the folk of any other country. Their hard struggle with a +rebellious soil has given them a quiet determination and tenacity of +purpose which are the root of Alpine enterprise and resourcefulness. +They possess character and independence in a high degree--mental +reflexes of the peaks of freedom, ever before their eyes. But they, +children of the mountain, born and bred amidst its beauties, are +surprisingly insensitive to beauty. + +I remember one exquisite sunset--one of those superlative sunsets that +burn themselves into the consciousness with a joy akin to pain, and of +which only a few are allotted to each human life. I stood watching the +sinking sun throw a crimson net over the snow mountains as the shadow of +night crept slowly up the hillside. The sky took on an opal light in +which were merged and transcended all the colours of the day. Every +pinnacle and rock was lit up as by a heavenly fire, the pines were +outlined like black sentinels against the sky, guardians of that +merciful green life from which we spring and to which we return. My old +friend the goat-herd and daily messenger from the highest pastures stood +beside me. "Beautiful, Pierre," I said, "and in this you have lived all +your life." + +"Yes," he said, slowly shifting the pipe from the left side of his +mouth to the right; "the cheese is fat and good in the mountains, and +the milk is not poisonous as it is in the plains, but it is hard work +for the back to carry it down twice a day." He looked at me as if +searching for better understanding. "But I will tell you something +nice," he added, by way of stirring up my sluggish imagination; "the +little brown cow has calved, and this autumn we are going to kill the +old cow, and we shall have good meat all the winter." + +Far be it from me to join in the thoughtless generalizations about the +obtuseness of the Alpine peasant which have disfigured some of the +literature of climbing. These climbers have shown infinitely greater +obtuseness before Alpine realities than the peasants derided by them. +True, a star may compete in vain with a cheese in suggesting visions of +joy, but our supercilious climbers forget that their admiration of +nature's marvels is generally built up on a substratum of cheese--or the +equivalent of cheese--plentifully supplied by the labour of others. +There is another class of climbers who idealize the peasant and the +guide, and who write of Alpine peasant-life as if it were nothing but a +series of perilous ascents nobly undertaken for the advancement of +humanity. + +I can understand the indifference of the peasant to the visions around +him. After a hard day's scything or woodcutting on slopes so steep that +the resistance of one's hob-nailed boots seems like that of soft soap, I +have felt profoundly healthy and ready to go to bed without listening to +any lyrics on the Alps. And even the thought of Tennyson's "awful rose +of dawn" would not have roused me before the labour of the next day. + +But we--how proud I am of that "we"!--who have chosen hard labour on the +mountain know something which the mere visitors (though they be members +of many Alpine Clubs) know not. We have a sense of home which no other +habitation can impart--a passionate love of the soil, a unity with the +little patch that is our own, bringing joys undimmed by any descriptions +of other-worldly possessions. Our trees may be wrecked by an avalanche, +our garden plot may be obliterated by a land slip; the stone walls we +build up in defiance of the snow are always pulled down by mountain +sprites. Our agriculture is precarious, and every carrot is bought by +the sweat of our brow. The struggle keeps pace with our love--there is a +tenfold sweetness in the fruit we reap. And when fate compels us to +leave our mountains we are pursued by restlessness. We know no peace, no +home elsewhere. We do assume the airs of Victor Hugo's cretin when we +are placed face to face with the riches of Croesus or the splendours +of Pharaoh. + +We must reluctantly admit that the phenomenon of cold indifference to +mountain scenery may occur without any corresponding degree of idiocy. +In the _Playground of Europe_, Leslie Stephen told us that a man who +preserves a stolid indifference in face of mountain beauty must be of +the "essentially pachydermatous order." He commented at length on the +peculiar temperament of those who have expressed dislike of his perfect +playground--Chateaubriand, Johnson, Addison, Bishop Berkeley. Bishop +Berkeley, who crossed Mont Cenis on New Year's Day 1714, complained that +he was "put out of humour by the most horrible precipices." There is +huge comfort to be drawn from Stephen's pages descriptive of the +"simple-minded abhorrence of mountains," and from his categorical +declaration that love of the sublime shapes of the Alps springs from "a +delicate and cultivated taste." But we are puzzled by the presence +outside the pale of some who cannot rightly be called "pachydermatous." +I am turning over the pages of Sarah Bernhardt's autobiographical +revelations. "I adore the sea and the plain," she writes, "but I neither +care for mountains nor for forests. Mountains seem to crush me, and +forests to stifle me." Strange that the high priestess of expression, +the interpreter of every phase of human passion and sorrow, she who dies +terribly twice a day, and mercilessly conducts us to the attenuated air +and dizzy heights of intense emotion, should feel no kinship with the +mountains. It may be that they are antagonistic to the fine arts of +simulation and will brook no companionship of feeling that is not real. +And her stage-worn heart is certainly not in alliance with Fiona +Macleod's _Lonely Hunter_. + + But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on + A lonely hill. + +We might assume that the traditional wildness of the great tragedienne +would have found a chord of sympathy in the avalanche or in the fierce +torrent breaking over the rocks. Rousseau's hysteria and wild assaults +on the conventions of Society and literature have been traced to the +mountains. Lord Morley emphasizes that Rousseau "required torrents, +rocks, dark forests, mountains, and precipices," and that no plains, +however beautiful, ever seemed so in his eyes. There is naturally a +complete divergence of opinion between lovers and haters of mountains as +to their effect on the literary mind. We like to associate peaks of +genius with peaks of granite. Ruskin found fault with Shakespeare's lack +of impression from a more sublime country as shown by the sacrilegious +lines-- + + Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow + Upon the valleys whose low vassal seat + The Alps doth spit, and void his rheum upon. + +There are anomalies in the capacity for aesthetic enjoyment of mountain +scenery which exclude some minds which we should expect to find amongst +the devotees and include others for whom we might look amongst the +scoffers. Dickens was profoundly affected by the mountain-presence. His +letters show the true rapture. Of the scenery of the St. Gothard he +writes: "Oh God! what a beautiful country it is. How poor and shrunken, +beside it, is Italy in its brightest aspect!" He sees "places of +terrible grandeur unsurpassable, I should imagine, in the world." Going +up the Col de Balme, he finds the wonders "above and beyond one's +wildest expectations." He cannot imagine anything in nature "more +stupendous or sublime." His impressions are so prodigious that he would +rave were he to write about them. At the hospice of the Great St. +Bernard he awakes, believing for a moment that he had "died in the night +and passed into the unknown world." Tyndall's scientific ballast cannot +keep him from soaring in a similar manner. His _Glaciers of the Alps_ +contains some highly strung sentences of delight. "Surely," he writes of +sunset seen near the Jungfrau, "if beauty be an object of worship, these +glorious mountains with rounded shoulders of the purest white, +snow-crested, and star-gemmed, were well calculated to excite sentiments +of adoration." His wealth of words increases with the splendour of the +views in which he revels; he becomes a poet in prose, he calls up symbol +and simile, he strains language to express the inexpressible. The sky +of the mountain is "rosy violet," which blends with "the deep zenithal +blue"; it wears "a strange and supernatural air"; he sees clear spaces +of amber and ethereal green; the blue light in the cave of the glacier +presents an aspect of "magical beauty." There is true worship of the +idol in the following lines descriptive of sunrise on Mont Blanc: + + The mountain rose for a time cold and grand, with no apparent + stain upon his snows. Suddenly the sunbeams struck his crown and + converted it into a boss of gold. For some time it remained the + only gilded summit in view, holding communion with the dawn, + while all the others waited in silence. These, in the order of + their heights, came afterwards, relaxing, as the sunbeams struck + each in succession, into a blush and smile. + +Tyndall holds the mastership of polychromatic description of the +beauties of the mountain; he makes us feel his own response to their +call to the depths of aesthetic perception in the human soul. Words gush +forth from him in a fervour of gratitude for the pleasures of the eye. +He may measure and weigh, he may set out as an emissary of cold +scientific investigation: he returns hot with admiration and raving of +the marvels of God upon the hills. But even he reaches a point where +the realization of the utter inadequacy of expression paralyses the +desire to convey the emotion to others. "I was absolutely struck dumb by +the extraordinary majesty of this scene," he writes of one evening, "and +watched it silently till the red light faded from the highest summits." + +Verestchagin astonished his wife by painting his studies of snow in the +Himalayas at an altitude of 14,000 feet, tormented by hunger and thirst +and supported by two coolies, who held him on each side. She had the +pluck and the endurance to follow him on his long climbs, but being a +less exalted mortal, her sense of fitness was unduly strained by the +intensity of Verestchagin's devotion to clouds and mountain-tops. "His +face is so frightfully swollen," she tells us, "that his eyes look +merely like two wrinkles, the sun scorches his head, his hand can +scarcely hold the palette, and yet he insists on finishing his sketches. +I cannot imagine," she reflects, "how Verestchagin could make such +studies." There were, nevertheless, occasions when the inaction, +following on intense aesthetic emotion, stayed Verestchagin's busy brush. +One day, relates Madame Verestchagin, he went out to sketch the sunset: + + He prepared his palette, but the sight was so beautiful that he + waited in order to examine it better. Several thousand feet below + us all was wrapped in a pure blue shadow; the summits of the + peaks were resplendent in purple flames. Verestchagin waited and + waited and would not begin his sketch. "By and by, by and by," + said he; "I want to look at it still; it is splendid!" He + continued to wait, he waited until the end of the evening--until + the sun was set and the mountains were enveloped in dark shadows. + Then he shut up his paint-box and returned home. + +As I read these lines I find myself wondering how many paint-boxes have +been shut up by the sight of the mountains. I know many have been +opened, and, amongst these, not a few which might have served humanity +better by remaining shut. But we may safely assume that despite the +general tendency of mountain worshippers to attempt to paint--in colours +strong and language divine--the effect on their minds, there are +exceptional instances of noble and self-imposed dumbness. Not the +dumbness which is practising the old device of-- + + Reculer pour mieux sauter, + +but a genuine silence of humility before the mysteries of nature. We +sigh in vain for a glimpse of these exceptional souls. They resist our +best climbing qualifications and are as inaccessible as the mists above +our highest tops. And we prefer, naturally, our talking companions, +those who shrink not from the task of ready interpretation. + +"The Alps form a book of nature as wide and mysterious as Life," says +Frederic Harrison in his _Alpine Jubilee_, in one of those clear-cut and +well-measured passages of mountain homage, which are balm to the +tormented hearts of those who feel themselves afloat on the clouds of +mystery. "To know, to feel, to understand the Alps is to know, to feel, +to understand Humanity." + +I am not at all sure this is true; it is probably entirely untrue. +Humanity--in the abstract--is apt to suffer an enforced reduction in +magnitude and importance when seen from Alpine heights. But it is one of +those phrases which we hug instinctively as the bearers of food for +hungry hearts. We do not want Leslie Stephen's reminder of metaphysical +riddles, "Where does Mont Blanc end and where do I begin?" We do not +want to be paralysed by philosophic doubt for the rest of our mortal +lives on the hills. We prefer to be stirred to emotional life by those +who are transported by love of beauty to the realms of unreason. + +In the autobiography of Princess Helene Racowitza--the tragically +beloved of Ferdinand Lassalle--there is evidence of such transport. She +has but reached one of the commonplaces of tourist ventures. From the +Wengern Alp she watches the play of night and dawn on the Jungfrau: + + Again and again the glory of God drew me to the window. In + the immense stillness of the loneliness of the mountains, the + thundering of the avalanches that crashed from time to time + from the opposite heights was the only sound. It was as if one + heard the breath of God, and in deepest reverence one's heart + stood almost still. + +She beholds the moon pale and the summit of the Jungfrau glitter in "a +thousand prismatic colours" from the rising sun: + + Once more I was shaken to the depths of my soul, thankful that + I was allowed to witness this and to enjoy it thus. A great joy + leapt up in my heart, which more surely than the most fervent + prayer of thanks penetrated to the infinite goodness of the + great Almighty. + +The sincerity of the religious feeling is enhanced by its simplicity. +The more complex experiences of the true mystical nature retain the same +intensity of devotional fervour. Anna Kingsford, whose interpretations +of the inner meaning of Christianity place her in the foremost rank of +modern mystics, was caught up to God by the beauty of the mountains. Her +friend and biographer, Edward Maitland, describes their effect on one in +whom a fiercely artistic soul did combat with a frail and suffering +body. It was whilst near the mountains that she conceived her beautiful +utterance on the Poet: + + But the personality of the Poet is Divine: and being Divine, it + hath no limits. + + He is supreme and ubiquitous in consciousness: his heart beats in + every Element. + + The Pulses of all the infinite Deep of Heaven vibrate in his own: + and responding to their strength and their plenitude, he feels + more intensely than other men. + + Not merely he sees and examines these Rocks and Trees: these + variable Waters, and these glittering Peaks. + + Not merely he hears this plaintive Wind, these rolling Peals: + + But he IS all these: and with them--nay, IN them--he rejoices and + weeps, he shines and aspires, he sighs and thunders. + + And when he sings, it is not he--the Man--whose Voice is heard: + it is the voice of all the Manifold Nature herself. + + In his Verse the Sunshine laughs; the Mountains give forth their + sonorous Echoes; the swift Lightnings flash. + + The great continual cadence of universal Life moves and becomes + articulate in human language. + + O Joy profound! O boundless Selfhood! O Godlike Personality! + + All the Gold of the Sunset is thine; the Pillars of Chrysolite; + and the purple Vault of Immensity! + +Anna Kingsford did not consciously seek the mountains to find there the +release of imprisoned powers of utterance. The mountains sought her by +their beauty and called forth the true mystic's ecstasy of communion. +Mystics of all times and all religions have found inspiration and +strength of spirit on the hilltops; they have forsaken the haunts of men +for the silence of the heights, preparing themselves by meditation and +self-purification to receive the Beatific Vision. They have gone up +alone in anguish and uncertainty, they have come down inspired bearers +of transcendental tidings to men. These messengers of the spirit have +known the joys of illumination and the secret of the strength of the +hills. + +Others have sought in agony and mortification of mind the vision which +was denied them. For in chasing away the images of sin they forgot to +make room for the images of beauty. With Simeon Stylites, they point to +their barren sojourn on the hills: + + Three winters that my soul might grow to thee, + I lived up there on yonder mountain-side, + My right leg chained into the crag, I lay + Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones. + +It is to the rarefied perception of beauty that we may trace the +quickening of spirit which artists and poets experience on the +mountains. Heine, going to the Alps with winter in his soul, "withered +and dead," finds new hope and a new spring. The melodies of poetry +return, he feels once again his valour as a soldier in the war of +liberation of humanity. + +The process of unburdening hearts has been continuous since we +discovered the boundless capacity of the hills to hide our shame and +discharge our thunder. Petrarch set the example on the top of Mont +Ventoux when he deliberately recollected and wept over his past +uncleanness and the carnal corruptions of his soul. I never tire of that +dearly sentimental mixture of world-weariness and nature-study which +Elisee Reclus called the _History of a Mountain_. "I was sad, downcast, +weary of my life. Fate had dealt hardly with me: it had robbed me of all +who were dear to me, had ruined my plans, frustrated all my hopes. +People whom I called my friends had turned against me when they beheld +me assailed by misfortune; all mankind with its conflicting interests +and its unrestrained passions appeared repulsive in my eyes." Thus he +invites us to follow him towards the lofty blue peaks. In the course of +his wanderings he finds Nature's peace and freedom, and as his love of +the mountains expands, kind tolerance returns to his heart. He takes +geological and meteorological notes, he studies men and beasts on the +peaks, and never forgets to draw moralizing comparisons. The climb is to +him the symbol of "the toilsome path of virtue," the difficult passes, +the treacherous crevasses reminders of temptations to be overcome by a +sanctified will. + +I am afraid modern climbers show scant regard for Elisee Reclus' rules +for moral exercises. Many are moved by an exuberance of physical energy +which rejoices in battle with Nature. They love the struggle and the +danger, the exercise and the excitement. They find health and good +temper, jollity and good-fellowship, through their exertions. They glory +shamelessly in useless scrambles which demand the sweat of their brow +and the concentrated attention of their minds. They seek to emulate the +chamois and the monkey in hanging on to rocks and insecure footholds. +When they do not climb, they fill libraries with descriptions of their +achievements, dull and unintelligible to the uninitiated, bloodstirring +and excellent to the members of the brotherhood. They write in a jargon +of their own of chimneys and buttresses and basins and ribs, of boulders +and saddles and moraine-hopping. They become rampant at the thought of +the stout, unworthy people who are now dragged to the tops by the help +of rope-chains and railings. They sarcastically remark that they may +have to abandon certain over-exploited peaks through the danger of +falling sardine-tins. They issue directions for climbing calculated to +chase away the poet from the snow-fields, as when Sir Martin Conway says +that a certain glacier must be "struck at the right corner of its +snout," and "its drainage stream flows from the left corner." + +They do not hesitate to admit that they would continue to climb even if +there were no views to be enjoyed from the tops. "I am free to confess," +wrote A. F. Mummery, "that I would still climb, even though there were +no scenery to look at." And Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond echoes this sentiment +in a defiant challenge to their uncomprehending critics. "To further +confound the enemy," she writes, "we do not hide the fact that were no +view obtainable from the summit a true climber would still continue to +climb." + +Why do they climb? The motives are many--the result joy. Yes, joy, even +in the providential escapes and the "bad five minutes," beloved by our +naive scribes of the ice-axe, in the perils and death which they court +for the sake of adventure and exploration. Sir Martin Conway speaks of +the systematic climber as the man for whom climbing takes the place of +fishing and shooting. How depressingly banal! Yet Sir Martin Conway has +written some of the finest tributes to the glories of the Alps, and has +shown himself a master of artistic interpretation of their wealth of +beauty. Whymper excels in matter-of-fact history of climbs, yet there is +an undercurrent of reverence for the mysteries of Nature's beauty. + +The expert cragsman climbs to attain acrobatic efficiency, and may aim +at nothing higher than inspired legs. Mrs. Peck climbed to establish the +equality of the sexes. Mr. and Mrs. Bullock Workman climbed in the +Himalayas with strong determination to name a mountain Mount Bullock +Workman. They did, and the mountain, which attains 19,450 feet, is none +the worse. Climbers are exceedingly human in their love of getting to +the top before fellow-climbers. Here they follow the ordinary rules for +human conduct in commerce, politics, and literature. There have been +some loud and unseemly quarrels as to honours and fame attendant on the +first successful conquest of a desirable peak. It has been generally +held that if you cannot get a mountain to yourself you can at any rate +devise a new route. But I cannot bring myself to speak harshly of such +failings. The utmost I will say is that it were better if such +enthusiasm were tempered with a little humour. + +Mark Twain saw through that deadly seriousness of the pure climber. He +saw the fatuity of mere peak-hunting. It impressed him strongly even on +the Rigi-Kulm. "We climbed and climbed," he writes in _A Tramp Abroad_, +"and we kept on climbing; we reached about forty summits: there was +always another one just ahead." + +But the pure climber is always a fountain of delight, even though he +does not see himself as others see him. The pages of Conway, Mummery, +Sir Claud Schuster, and Bruce abound in gems of nature-lore, ever fresh +and ever alluring. As I search for more self-revelation in my books by +mountain-lovers, I find myself observed through the window. It is only a +cow on her way to the hollow tree into which the water courses out of +the earth. But the cow brings me back to the strenuous Alpine life, and +I find myself concluding, as I replace the books on their shelves, that +I do not care why men climb so long as they climb in spirit and body. + + + + +THE BORDERLAND + + +This evening the blind man came up the path from the village. I was +sitting on a stump of pine listening to the merry peal of the bells of +the little village church below. He carried a milk-can, and felt his way +with a long staff, with which he tapped the stones in front of him. He +hesitated for a moment as he passed me, as if vaguely conscious of a +disturbing presence. We have been good friends, the blind man and I, and +have had many a talk on this, our common path. But to-night I sat +silent, wondering. For a message had reached me that a friend had been +killed in battle. A man strong and active in body, intensely alive and +sensitive in soul. One of those whom we can never think of as dead, so +wholly do they belong to life. + +The blind man stopped at a little distance. He chose a place where the +trees have been cleared and the snow mountains spread themselves for +the feast of the eyes of those who can see. He put his milk-can and his +staff on the ground, and stood for a moment with head bowed as if +crushed by his infirmity. Then he threw up his hands and raised his +head, as though a sudden vision had come to him--his whole body tense +and expectant, like that of a man who strains every nerve to catch a +message from the hills across the valley. For a minute he remained +still, as if receiving something in his hands borne by the silence. Then +he picked up his staff and his can. He turned round and faced me for a +moment before resuming his journey. There was a smile on his lips and a +strange radiance in his sightless eyes, and I wished that I, too, might +see what he had seen. + +For the darkness with which we are afflicted lay heavily around me, and +seemed greater even than the blindness of the eyes. The war has brought +the mystery of death to our hearts with pitiless insistence. Every +bullet that finds its mark kills more than the soldier who falls. Ties +of love and friendship are shattered hour by hour and day by day, as the +guns of war roar out their message of destruction. We are all partners +in a gigantic Dance of Death such as Holbein never imagined. To him +Death was the wily and insistent enemy of human activity and hope, a spy +watching in the doorway for an opportunity to snap the thread of life. +We have cajoled and magnified Death until he has outgrown all natural +proportions; through centuries of war and preparation for war we have +appealed to him to settle our national differences. We have outdone the +earthquake and the cyclone in valid claims upon his power and presence; +we have outwitted pestilence and famine in our efforts to hold his +attention. We, of the twentieth century, have attained mastery in the +art of killing. We kill by fire and bursting shell, we kill by mine and +gas. We dive under the surface of the water to surprise our enemy, we +fly in the air and sow fire and devastation upon the earth. We have +chained science to our chariot of Death, we have made giant tools of +killing which mow down regiments of men at great distances. We send out +fumes of poison which envelop groups of human beings, killing them +gently, and emphasizing the triumph of art by leaving them in attitudes +simulating life. We project shells so powerful that men disappear in +the explosion, melted, disintegrated by its destructive force. + +And when long-distance scientific methods of man-killing fall short of +the passions of the fray or the exigencies of the fight, we return to +the primitive ways of savages, and kill by dagger and knife, by bayonet +and fist. Thus millions of men are slain in this war, which has achieved +superiority over all other wars in history by the number of its dead and +its gigantic destructiveness. And other millions of men and women are +plunged into sorrow and mourning for the dead, and to them the meaning +of life is hidden behind a veil of tears and blood. + +There is an incongruity about death on the battlefield which assails the +mind. The incongruity is there notwithstanding the probability that the +soldier who faces the fire of the enemy will be killed. It defies the +mathematical calculation of chances. It rises naturally as a protest +against the sudden termination of life at its fullest. Death after a +long illness, at the eventide of life, partakes of the order of falling +leaves and autumnal oblivion. It may come softly as sleep when the day's +work is done; it may come mercifully to end bodily pain and +wretchedness. There are moments in every life when the ebb of physical +force is so low that death seems but a step across the border--a change +by which we desire to cure the weariness of thought. The soldier goes +into battle charged with youth and life, buoyant with energy of muscle +and nerve. Death seizes him at the noontide of life and leaves us +blindly groping for other-worldly compensation. + +The present war is being fought against a background of questions which +cannot be suppressed by discipline or the mere fulfilment of patriotic +duty. The old acceptance of the social order is passing away. The old +acceptance of religious nescience is passing away; there is a new +impatience to reach the foundation of things, a popular clamour for +explanation of the riddles of life. Out of the decivilizing forces of +war, its tumult and wreckage, there emerges a new quest for truth. +Simple souls are troubled with a warlike desire for evidence of +immortality. The parson's exhortations to live by faith and unreasoning +acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine fall on inattentive ears. "There +is a shocking recrudescence of superstition and devil-worship," said a +clergyman to me the other day; "people consult fraudulent mediums and +fortune-tellers." + +I listened to him and remembered an afternoon's visit to a bereaved +mother. She is a charwoman endowed with the scientific mind. Her son had +been killed by an exploding shell. Only a fragment or two had been +necessary for the task. Jimmy had no chance. Courage and energy had +never failed him. The spirit that dwelt within his thin and somewhat +stunted body would have rejoiced in battle with a lion. But shells are +no respecters of spirit. Jimmy had successfully fought poverty and +ill-health; he had risen from a newspaper-boy's existence to the dizzy +heights of a milkman's cart. His pale face with its prominent eyes and +rich, chestnut forelock bore an expression of indomitable Cockney +confidence in the ultimate decency of things. He had always been kind to +his mother. "More like a girl than a boy," she said, "in the way he +cared for his home and looked after me." And now Jimmy was dead: the +message had come that he would not return. "And why is he dead," said +the mother to me, "and where is he?" She was sitting in her kitchen, +which bore its usual aspect of order and cleanliness. But her face +looked as if some disordering power had passed over her. "I asked our +curate to explain where Jimmy is," she continued, "and he told me that +doubt is a sin, and that we shall meet again on the day of resurrection. +And when I told him that I felt Jimmy quite close to me in this kitchen, +a week after his death, and that I thought I heard his voice calling me, +the curate said I ought not to think of such things. Faith and hard work +were the best cure for such fancies, he said." + +"But do you know what I did?" she added in a whisper, intended to +deceive the curate, "I went to one of those mediums that Mrs. Jones +knows about. I paid a shilling, and we all sat in a ring, and the medium +saw Jimmy and described him, just as he is in his uniform and cap, a +little over the right ear, and the scar across his nose--you know, the +scar from the fall down the front steps when he was nine--and all +smiling, and showing the missing tooth. 'Jimmy wants you to know that he +is happy, very happy,' she said, and then Jimmy came and spoke through +the medium. 'Mother,' he said to me, 'I want you to give my pipe with +the silver band to Charlie, and don't make no bones about it.' Then I +knew it was Jimmy, for Jimmy always used to say 'don't make no bones +about it.' And now I feel he is alive somewhere, and I shall go again to +the medium and find out more." + +I thought of this when the clergyman complained of the prevalence of +superstition and visits to mediums. I suggested that he should +investigate the subject of spiritualism and the reasons for its appeal +to sorrow-stricken relatives and friends of soldiers. The suggestion was +indignantly rejected. Religion was to him a theory based on revelation +vouchsafed thousands of years ago; it was now a system of stereotyped +belief and conduct, strangely removed from the perplexities and anguish +of the individual soul. His academic mind recoiled from the grotesque +and trivial messages associated with seances and the performances of +professional psychics. + +We are wont to contemplate immortality in much the same manner as we +contemplate the moon. It is something remote and incapable of active +interference in our daily life and tasks. It sheds a pale and pleasant +light on our earthly pilgrimage, and we in our turn render homage to +the mellow beauty which it imparts to our poetic imagination. Only +children cry for the moon. We know it is unattainable. + +The rejection of the crude theories of spiritualism is not altogether +the result of wilful blindness. In our innermost minds, in the region +beyond the grasp of the brain and its ready generalizations, we hunger +for inexpressible reality, for life beyond the stars. We have eaten of +the tree of sense-knowledge: we have seen, heard, felt, tasted. We want +a reality above the traffic and deception of the senses. Vaguely, but +insistently we feel the call to the life of the spirit, and when its +definition eludes us, we prefer silence and faith. It is then that the +familiar prattle of the seance-room offends us. We sought freedom, +light, absolution from the trammels of personality, and we are told that +the dead appear in bodies and clothes, that they toil and fret, that +they inhabit houses and cities. Our plains Elysian suffer an invasion of +lawyers and physicians, of merchants and moneylenders. The weariness of +repetition pursues us. + +And yet we may be more completely the victims of illusion than our +vendor of spiritualistic revelation. We who cherish the belief in +immortality forget that death can be naught but the shedding of a form. +The substance is unchanged. The fabric of the mind is woven day by day +by impressions and ideas, by experience and action. Nobody questions the +commonplace phenomena of the shaping of individuality and character. +Habits, occupation, tastes, and desires mould a distinct personality out +of the common clay. The experience of death cannot dissolve the +personality. The death-process can neither whitewash a man's sin nor +exalt him beyond his virtue. + +And thus it is that he who dearly loved a joke may joke still, and he +who thought he was collecting fine old pictures may still indulge his +taste. Delusions! Not impossible or even unlikely. Kant demonstrated +once for all our complete enslavement by phenomena and our inability to +approach things-in-themselves. Spiritualistic interpretation of +post-mortem conditions offers no exception. Imagination continues to +master our souls. Spiritualism offends us by offering bread-and-butter +when we expect moonshine. + +We are loath to part with the belief that death transforms the +character by one great stroke of spiritual lightning. Vanity, envy, +meanness, greed, the foibles and frailties of human nature, repel us +when we imagine their persistence in others after death. We infinitely +prefer the thought that they should be purged and radiant with spiritual +effulgence. We are not so sure about ourselves, for the objective +classification of the qualities which go to form our own character is a +difficult achievement. And the idea of dispensing with essential parts +of our mental equipment does not commend itself to us. There is a point +in all our philosophy where speculation seeks the natural repose of the +unknowable. It is quickly reached when we attempt to probe the mystery +of selfhood. + +The plain question whether the dead can communicate with the living +persists in spite of the imperfections of the answer. The war has made +it paramount, and only second in importance to the crucial query: Do +they live? There is a clamour for evidence, signs, messages, testimony. +The human heart cries out for comfort. "Yesterday he breathed the same +air, felt and thought as I do. To-day he lies dead, his body shattered, +his hopes wrecked, his happy laughter silent. Does he know? Does he +feel and remember? Is there an eternal gulf of silence between us?" + + O! for the touch of a vanished hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still. + +The Church tries vainly to ban the new inquisitiveness. The intercourse +with familiar spirits is condemned as a theological offence, a +vainglorious and futile storming of the citadel of God. The secret of +the tomb must be preserved, though the masses of Christendom have ceased +to believe in the long and mouldering sleep of the centuries before the +summons to the Judgment. They are no longer scorched by the threat of +eternal fire, nor soothed by the hope of clouds and harps. The love that +is in them would not tolerate the infliction of an eternity of torture +on a fellow-soul, and their conception of the love of God cannot place +Him below the promptings of human mercy. The reason that is in them is +not attracted by the promise of a heaven of rosy inaction and strifeless +rest. The contrast of heaven and hell, so powerful a corrective of human +waywardness in mediaeval times, fails to impress the modern mind. The +windows of experience and knowledge have been opened too widely, the +powers and manifold possibilities of the earth lie open and tempt to the +search for a super-mundane world, not poorer and more complex, but +richer and more lavish in creative force. + +The law supports the opposition of the Church and frowns on the practice +of mediumship and clairvoyance. The law denies the possibility of spirit +intercourse and forbids the exercise of supernormal faculties in +exploring the untrodden realms of the future. Prosecutions are +instituted under the old Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts, and psychic +practitioners are fined or sent to prison in the hope of stemming the +tide of inquiry. The law and the spirit were ever at variance. But it is +difficult to understand why those who mourn, and who ask questions, +should be deprived of the comfort which they may find through visits to +professional mediums. The risk of deception and false pretences is +there, it is true, but that risk exists everywhere. There are lawyers, +politicians, and physicians who tell "fortunes" and practise +"witchcraft" of their own brand, decidedly more harmful and disruptive +than the visions of the unlettered clairvoyant. + +The magistrate, who sends a clairvoyant to prison because he is +convinced that all claims to psychic gifts and to communion with +discarnate spirits are fraudulent, is not troubled by his ignorance, and +the evidence of psychic research is not acceptable in his court. He +typifies the perpetual official, ever ready to suppress new and +evolutionary thought. After all, psychic science fares no worse than the +physical sciences in the judgment of respectable mediocrity. The +progress of science in the nineteenth century was one long conquest of +territory in the land of the impossible. Inventors and inventions have +met with incredulity and mockery. Railways, steamships, aeroplanes, +telegraphy, telephony and cinematographs have all emerged from the +region of "impossibilities." Roentgen-rays and radium have descended from +the sphere of miracles. + +Experience should endow us with cautiousness in proclaiming +impossibilities of the future. The study of psychic science has imposed +no greater strain on my reason than the attempt to explain the mysteries +of biology and astronomy. Observation and classification do not +necessarily imply elucidation. The miracle of the foetus taking human +shape and soul, or of the oak rising out of the acorn and the brown +earth is to me as baffling as the materialization of a spirit. The +marvels of the cell-life and the daily chemistry which maintain the body +charm my attention as much as the mysterious clouds of light with which +spirits are wont to signalize their presence in the seance-room. I have +sat for hours on a summer night by the Mediterranean watching the +phosphorescent waves throw a luminous spray over the shore, and +meditating on the inexhaustible fertility of the sea. And I have watched +with the same intense wonder the phenomena of the soul illuminated by +the _daimon_ of inner vision and the infinite manifestations of the +power of spirit over matter. From the point of view of science there is +no clearly defined frontier between the natural and the supernatural, +the commonplace and the miraculous. All is soil for the plough, all +defies our designs for complete explanation. From the point of view of +religious emotion, there is the greatest possible difference between the +sciences of psychic force and those that seek to probe the mysteries of +the physical world. The question of the immortality of the human soul is +infinitely more engrossing than that of the formation of the skull of +neolithic man. The strictly evidential demonstration of communion +between the living and the dead might be almost negligible in quantity, +and yet the importance of one rap from the world of discarnate spirits, +scientifically demonstrated, would outweigh tomes of theories in +physics. + +True, those who live in the spirit need no demonstrations provided by +scientific investigators of psychic problems. The mystic consciousness +with its intuition of immortality, its sensitiveness to the vibration of +life on all planes and in all forms _knows_, and in knowledge transcends +alike the boundaries of religionists and scientists. The mystic may +smile at the labour expended during the last fifty years on establishing +a strictly evidential basis for the study of transcendental facts. He +has conquered the inherited blindness of our race, and sees spirit not +as a supernatural demonstration, vouchsafed now and then to doubting +humanity, but as the living Presence of which he is joyously a part. He +does not fall into the common error of forgetting that we are spirits +sheathed in flesh, but bearing within ourselves the power over matter +which is destined to achieve the miraculous. He can dispense with a +medium, being himself a fountain of light, and experiencing the wondrous +self-illumination of which Thomas Treherne sang-- + + O Joy! O wonder and delight! + O sacred mystery! + My soul a spirit infinite! + An image of the Deity! + A pure substantial light! + That being greatest which doth nothing seem! + . . . . . + O wondrous Self! O sphere of light, + O sphere of joy most fair; + O act, O power infinite; + O subtile and unbounded air! + O living orb of sight! + Thou which within me art, yet me! Thou eye + And temple of His whole infinity! + +But the spiritual raptures of the mystics of all ages have not moved +souls struggling in the outer darkness for tangible proofs of +immortality. To them the application of the methods approved by reason +and tested by scientific application will ever be welcome. They know +that the mind of man has wrested secret after secret from the earth by +observation, by experiment, by deduction. They know that the great +generalizations of science--the theories of the indestructibility of +matter, of gravitation, of the conservation of energy--are but counters +of mind exchanged in default of elusive realities. They know that the +pressure of research has reduced many of the lesser generalizations and +theories to a fluid and amorphous state. "Immutable" laws have been +turned into faulty conclusions, hastily drawn and readily abandoned +before the advance of new facts. The fixity of the elements in +chemistry, the undulatory movement of light, the stability of the +planetary orbits, the indestructibility of the atom, are all +abstractions which have been subjected to the reforming processes of new +thought. + +Progress in physics has been marked by bold hypotheses dealing with +imponderable forces, and by experiments disclosing hidden properties of +matter. The hypothetical ether has been as fruitful in the liberation of +thought as the demonstration of the existence of the X-rays. + +The application of methods of scientific accuracy to the physical +phenomena of spiritualism involves no revolution in mental processes or +reversal of the laws of logic. The publication of the results of the +classical experiments in materialization undertaken in 1874 by Sir +William Crookes with the medium Florence Cooke caused incredulous +amazement, for the simple reason that the custodians of science had not +applied themselves to the lessons afforded by the continuous shifting of +their frontiers. Crookes' report that Katie King, the spirit who took +material form during the seances, was a perfect, though mysterious +replica of the natural-born human being, roused no general scientific +interest. He asserted that Katie was physiologically complete. That she +walked, talked, expressed intelligence and feeling, that she had a +regularly beating heart and sound lungs. He further pointed out that the +personality of Katie in appearance and character differed considerably +from that of the medium, and that it was impossible to regard the +materialized form as but a phantasm of the living. A stupendous +discovery or a pitiful figment of a lunatic brain! But no flash of +lightning rent the halls of learning; Sir William Crookes' researches +into radiant matter could safely be accepted as workable intellectual +ground, but not his researches into spiritual dynamics. + +And yet there was no unorthodoxy in his methods of research; he imposed +strict conditions of experimental control. There is a strange reluctance +in accepting the necessity for "mediums" in psychic manifestations. If +these things are possible, we are told, why not here, now, anywhere, in +broad daylight? Why mystifying circles, cabinets, and subdued light? Our +scoffers forget that scientific investigation always requires a medium +and method. The need of the telescope and the microscope is not +questioned, but the thought of the planchette evokes ridicule. The +practical success of wireless telegraphy depends on the use of an +adequate medium for the transmission of electricity. The most meagre +training suffices to prevent the declaration that if wireless messages +cannot be sent without apparatus they cannot be sent at all. + +Notwithstanding the indifference of the majority of scientists, the +problems of spirit intercourse have proved sufficiently attractive to +stimulate a vast amount of experimentation and theorizing. The study of +mediumship has necessarily become the study of consciousness and the +occult powers of the human mind. In the centre a handful of fearless +scientists: Crookes, Wallace, Richet, Flammarion, Morselli, Baraduc, +Myers, Lombroso, Lodge, and Barrett; in the inner circle a number of +academic investigators, disdaining alike the premature proclamation of +phenomenal results and the obstinate denial of facts; in the outer +circle an ever-growing mass of souls clamouring for the crumbs of +evidence, hungry for something personal and soul-warming in our dealings +with the Divine dispensation. + +The annals of psychic science--in different tongues and of different +continents--are largely devoted to the investigation of trance, +clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, hypnotism, dreams, premonitions, +automatic writing, visions, and messages from the dying, multiple +personality, and all the phenomena associated with the subconscious +self. Many students have dispensed with the spirit hypothesis as an +unnecessary and embarrassing complication in a subject already +overburdened with difficulties. Spirit messages are to them examples of +the activity of the subliminal self, and a medium is a person gifted--or +cursed--with extraordinary subconscious force and lucidity. +Materializations, they argue, are produced through the effluvia of the +living and controlled by the subliminal forces of the participators in +the seance. Spirits are nothing but thought-forms. The painstaking +investigation recorded in the _Proceedings_ and _Journal of the Society +for Psychical Research_ has to a great extent been carried on by +inquirers unencumbered by any bias towards "spookery." But the theories +in elaboration of psycho-pathological vagaries and dissociation of +personality which have been substituted for the spirit hypothesis +certainly do not err on the side of intelligible explication. They have +but deepened the mystery and show the vista of new and unexplored paths +in psychic science. + +Others, again, who are not unwilling to believe that the phenomena are +produced by the action of intelligences other than that of the medium, +abandon further study because of the meagreness of the intellectual +results. They have waited on the visitors from another world, notebook +in hand, plying them with careful questions intended to increase our +modest store of knowledge. The replies were unsatisfactory, commonplace, +sometimes ludicrous. Attempts to write a passable textbook on life in +the spirit world have failed lamentably. The indignation of the sorely +disappointed scientist was voiced by the late Professor Hugo +Muensterberg, of Harvard, in his _Psychology of Life_: + + Thousands and thousands of spirits have appeared; the ghosts of + the greatest men have said their say, and yet the substance of it + has always been the absurdest silliness. Not one inspiring + thought has yet been transmitted by this mystical way; only the + most vulgar trivialities. It has never helped to find the truth; + it has never brought forth anything but nervous fear and + superstition. + +His denunciation embraces the whole subject of spiritualistic evidence +and ends in utter pessimism-- + + Our belief in immortality must rest on the gossip which departed + spirits utter in dark rooms through the mouths of hypnotized + business mediums, and our deepest personality comes to light when + we scribble disconnected phrases in automatic writing. Is life + then really still worth living? + +I have every sympathy with the complaint. But our psychologist forgot +that life is largely made up of trivialities, and that the spirits of +the dead, if they really wish to make themselves known to us, can do so +with greater certainty of being recognized by reminding us of events +and objects with which they are associated in our memory than by +presenting us with a corrected version of the nebular theory. The +average medium and the average gathering of inquirers are not +distinguished by any great intellectual achievement. The general +educational level may be low and the total capacity to sift and weigh +evidence may fall short of that of an undergraduates' debating society. +Yet the evidence produced may not only be entirely soul-satisfying to +the participants, but perfectly acceptable to a critic contented with +the average quality of evidence current in a court of law. It may even +be true that the evidential value rises with the number of trivialities +recorded. + +And "the truth" which Professor Muensterberg sought in vain is +demonstrated to others through the same trivial evidence, as is shown by +the verdict of Alfred Russel Wallace: + + Spiritualism demonstrates by direct evidence, as conclusive + as the nature of the case admits, that the so-called dead are + still alive; that our friends are often with us, though unseen, + and give direct proof of a future life--proof which so many + crave, but for want of which so many live and die in anxious + doubt. How valuable the certainty to be gained from spiritual + communications! A clergyman, a friend of mine, who witnessed + the phenomena, and who before was in a state of the greatest + depression, caused by the death of his son, said to me, "I am + now full of confidence and cheerfulness. I am a changed man." + +It is not unnatural that the answers given to those who ask for +admittance to the closed door of the mysteries of the human soul should +be pitched in the same key as the inquiry. Disappointment is not +uncommon. I have taken part in seances of every kind, with cautious +investigators devoid of all spiritualistic bias, with unsophisticated +believers in a supernatural source of all psychic phenomena, with +scoffers convinced that every medium is an impostor, and that nothing +but a little common sense is needed for the exposure. The results have +been largely dependent on the mentality of the investigators. Failure to +understand this is responsible for much of the disappointment and +contempt with which otherwise intelligent critics have dismissed the +subject. The accumulated thought-power, the collective mind of those who +participate, profoundly influence the medium and the quality of the +communications received. One stubborn soul may wreck the meeting. I +remember an evening at the house of Mr. W. T. Stead. There had been a +series of highly successful demonstrations of "spirit voices," +distinctly audible and perfectly intelligible. A well-known minister of +the Church visible joined the circle--a man clothed in all the outward +signs of spirituality, uniting clerical decorum with an emotional +fervour in preaching which had made him a popular favourite. Though +feeling has now and then led him into unconventional paths of +theological thought, fate has surely marked him for the adornment of a +bishopric. He came to study the alleged powers of the medium. He doubted +everything and everybody. The easy faith and unquestioning acceptance of +miraculous events of which he was not ashamed whilst in the pulpit had +now been exchanged for vigilant suspicion and impatient analysis. He +plied the medium with questions, bludgeoned her with requests for +evidence that she was not deluded or deluding. He turned himself into +cross-examining counsel, proud of his discrimination and his immunity +against the insidious appeal of the supernatural. He succeeded. The +medium was confounded, she lost her power; the phenomena did not occur. +The atmosphere was chilled. Some of us felt we would rather have been +visited by the village blacksmith than by this priestly exponent of +sweet-faced materialism. + +I do not deny that I have often been struck with the intellectual +poverty of messages from the spirit world. They are often silly, and not +seldom untruthful. The silliness and the untruthfulness are faithful +reflections of common human failings, and only show that heavenly wisdom +is as unattainable through the average spiritualistic channels as it is +in the Houses of Parliament or the courts of law. + +I can imagine a radiant and purely spiritual being attempting to convey +a true description of the state of spiritual bliss to a circle of men +and women representative of cultured thought, and practical efficiency +in the affairs of the world. Let the circle include a few university +professors, some successful men of business, a couple of judges, a +sprinkling of journalists, an archdeacon or two, and some authors of +repute. Let them all be actuated by a strong desire to obtain reliable +information and to give a fair and unprejudiced hearing to the visitor. + +The visitor is necessarily hampered by the necessity for a medium. It +may be that the senior judge is gifted with psychic powers and that the +method of communication chosen is that of trance. + +The learned brain-cells would transmit the message up to a certain +point, but when an effort was made to depict unfathomed depths and +heights of transcendental experience, the judicial mind would rebel. +The sense of logic would be strained. The conception of the possible +would be violated. A fearful consciousness of being guilty of uttering +lies would persist, in spite of efforts to subdue reason. Language +would break in the attempt to find words for the inexpressible, the +message would be blurred and incoherent. The judge might pull himself +together, feeling that the turbulent thought-waves of contending +counsel form a much safer ground on which to pronounce truth than the +fourth-dimensional hurricane with which he had just battled. And the +audience might turn with relief to the thought of dinner outside Bedlam. + +By some wild flights of imagination we may picture another kind of +circle. Let a poet be the medium; Swedenborg, Dante, Blake, Socrates, +Jacob Boehme, Tasso, Milton, Eckart, Ruysbroek, St. Teresa, Joan of Arc, +Emerson, Shelley, and a few more visionaries, and dreamers be of the +circle. Let our Radiant Being try again. The vibrations of the combined +psychic force would respond more readily to the world-strangeness of the +visitor. There would be fewer mental obstacles raised by the sense of +the impossible. The restraints of logic would be more easily overcome. +The avenues of supersensual impressions would be open. The medium would +transmit the message to a point far beyond that possible to our psychic +judge, and the audience would encourage him by their readiness to grasp +the revelations made. The language of mysticism, philosophy, and +poetry would be strained to its utmost capacity. Then a sense of +incompleteness, of deficiency, of hopeless relativity would overcome the +audience. The medium had exerted every spiritual faculty to receive the +truth. But the visitor could not convey celestial realities to terrene +minds. + +Every true artist in words, or colour, or sound is always haunted by the +inexpressible--by spiritual impotence to overcome the laws of +imprisonment in the flesh. He clutches at symbol and suggestion, at +parable and fable, conscious of the truth that the unreal is the most +real. + +The goats have gathered round me as I sit musing in the gloaming. The +leading goat is a handsome animal, generally respected and feared by the +rest of the herd. He has excellent knowledge, inherited and acquired, of +the uses of mountains, and his venerable beard adorns a head of +undisputed male ascendancy in the tribe. I bear him a grudge. He is in +the habit of eating my sapling pines, carefully planted by me and +carelessly nipped in the bud by him. I have expostulated with him in a +variety of ways--some gentle, others forceful, but he is incorrigible. +He will not understand that my young pines are beautiful, and that they +are expected to grow into fine trees. He has no sense of beauty, of +symmetry, of fitness. He is only a beast. He has no soul--I pause, +remembering the ineffectual attempts of my Radiant Being to inspire +human souls with a greater vision. Are we not all goats before the gaze +of more finely organized creatures? + +The evolutionist need not be disheartened by the thought. Nature is +unexhausted. Desire and experience are ever creating new forms, new +organs. A child's book of beasts will supply the requisite suggestion: +the neck of the giraffe, the stripes of the tiger, the tail of the +beaver may, without offence, provide analogies for the faith in organic +human perfectibility. The processes of natural selection and variation +cannot have been brought to a standstill; they must be at work now and +may yet--should surroundings and necessity create the demand--halve the +neck of the giraffe, give snow-white lamb's clothing to the tiger, and +turn the rudder of the beaver into the prehensile tail of the monkey. +There is no biological completion, no finitude. It is only a matter of +time--sufficient time--and our bodies may become as strangely +interesting to posterity as are to us the dinosaurs and mammoths of the +remote past. + +Mind is not arrested by formal obstacles. It builds, destroys, and +rebuilds. It may take a million years to fashion a useful organ. +Slowness is no deterrent. The powers that shaped the genius of +Michelangelo and Shakespeare out of the rude brain of savage man needed +time, but the achievement was worthy of the labour. To-day there are +signs and portents that psychic faculties once possessed by the very +few are in process of development in the many, that new senses are +awakened which will find contact with realities hitherto unperceived. +The imperfections of mediumship and the remoteness of a psychic +super-humanity, godlike in wisdom and ethereal in constitution, do not +conceal the trend of mental evolution. The medium is often a strange +blend of spiritual and carnal tendencies, of knowledge and ignorance, of +delicate perception and denseness. Those who expect saintliness as the +first attribute of psychic advancement will certainly be disillusioned. +These gifts and graces may appear, not only without any corresponding +degree of culture and learning, but associated with a certain vulgarity +of thought and conduct. The psychic is essentially impressionable, +liable to mental contagion, easily stirred by suggestion. The tendency +to instability, to emotional excess, is part of this receptivity which +culminates in the state of being "controlled." An untrained psychic who +is mastered by his impressions, instead of being their master, may +easily be induced to tell lies and give false messages by a visitor who +is determined to discover fraud. The same psychic may rise to +unaccustomed levels of spiritual clearsight in the presence of a visitor +who demands the truth only. + +The ladder of psychic development is long and arduous to mount. The +number of the climbers steadily diminishes as the top is reached. Here, +as elsewhere, there is a common crowd, content with the steps nearest +the earth, in morals a faithful reflection of average humanity. They are +neither better nor worse, they are merely different. They are the masons +of the mind, a race of builders, addicted to a workmanship of their own. + +To a discerning psychologist they are profoundly interesting, heralds of +a new race and a new age; to an unsophisticated alienist they are merely +insane, dangerous victims of sick brains. The whole fabric of evidence +relating to lunacy would be broken up by the admission that these +strange people who fall into trance and speak unknown tongues or convey +messages from the dead are sane. Current theories of psycho-pathology +would be hopelessly disturbed by the admission that there may be a +super-sanity in which clairvoyance and clairaudience are normal and +healthy manifestations of life. A person who professes to be an exponent +of psychometry, who recalls circumstances and events from the "aura" of +inanimate objects, such as a letter or a glove, is naturally classed +with the insane. Hallucinations _en masse_ are proffered as explanation +of the physical phenomena which take place. Thus only can orthodox +psychiatry remain unperturbed when heavy objects are lifted without any +apparent cause, when unearthly sounds and voices are produced, when +human forms take shape, are seen, and disappear. + +The study of psychic faculties is above all a study of consciousness. +Maeterlinck speaks of "the gravest problem that can thrill mankind, the +knowledge of the future." The knowledge of the present, of the hidden +powers and graces within our souls, is even more thrilling. I can +imagine no science of greater importance, no investigation more worthy +of devotion. The profundity of the problems is but an incitement. We +have not hesitated to tabulate the stars, to weave precious conjectures +as to their courses and destinies. Is the human soul more remote and +inscrutable? We are assured that it has five windows and no more, that +it is useless to look for others. But when an increasing number of +explorers in the house of life tell us that there are six or seven or +more, we may at any rate listen and follow their directions. +Obscurantism is revelling in proclaiming prohibited areas of +investigation. + +I recognize that the problem is complicated by the mixture of truth and +falsehood, of genuine psychic powers and counterfeit practices. There +are impostors and parasites who by dint of glib tongues and nimble wit +deceive the foolish and the credulous. Browning's Sludge is not entirely +extinct. Honest workers who turn their gifts to professional uses and +who depend on the patronage of the public are subject to peculiar +temptations. They are visited by the worldly and the covetous, they are +exploited by sensation-mongers and fraud-hunters, they are subjected to +conditions entirely inimical to spiritual poise and lucidity. Some +resort to fraud. The report that the medium failed to satisfy the client +is apt to interfere with business, and failure is, therefore, shunned. +But the law does not trouble to distinguish between the honest and the +dishonest person who claims psychic gifts. From the legal point of view +it is all pretence. It is imperatively necessary that genuine psychic +gifts should be protected from the depredations of frivolity as well as +from the interference of an obsolete law. We have some idea of +protecting great and uncommon gifts in music, mathematics, and poetry, +but we leave psychic gifts without help or training. An institute for +the study of Psychic Science in all its branches, with facilities for +training and assisting individual gifts, would remove some of the worst +features of the present system. A genuine psychic should be the holder +of some form of certificate or licence entitling him to use his gifts +for the benefit of others. + +Of course, the subject bristles with difficulties, but I do not see that +they are more insuperable than those which presented themselves when +first the idea of registering and licensing the medical and legal +professions presented itself. And those who are indignant at the thought +of the clairvoyant charging a fee may profitably reflect on the general +assumption that the labourer is worthy of his hire. The deans and +bishops who discourse so eloquently on the sins of the necromancers are +not, I believe, renouncing the material benefits and emoluments of +their priestly calling. + +I do not look to visits to professional mediums for initiation into the +higher mysteries of the human spirit. They may show the casket--precious +as an indication of the contents, but of little value to those who are +bent on finding the jewel within. And I agree that no advanced soul is +"controlled" by a discarnate spirit, but rises through aspiration and +self-restraint to union with higher intelligences. I can see no light or +love in the attitude of those professors of Christianity who denounce +all spiritualistic tendencies as anti-Christian. It seems to me that the +whole Christian faith is spiritualistic in the widest sense of the word. +The Old and the New Testaments are permeated with the belief in the +reality of communication between the living and the dead. The injunction +in the Old Testament against sorcerers and wizards was intended to check +tendencies to unreasonable and dangerous superstition. + +Moses may have had excellent reasons for forbidding occult practices +amongst the Jews. Saul, who had put away those that had familiar spirits +and the wizards out of the land, was not unlike some modern adversaries +of spiritualism when in the day of his trouble and fear he consulted the +medium of Endor. The accepted prophets of Israel were, after all, +typical of mediumship. "And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, +and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another +man." They practised bold fortune-telling in matters large and small, +national and cosmic. To-day they would surely be imprisoned as rogues +and vagabonds under the Vagrancy Act. The New Testament contains no +direct prohibition of the use of psychic powers and many stories of +dreams, visions, and premonitions. + +"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit," wrote St. +Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. "For to one is given, by +the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, by the +same Spirit.... To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; +to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to +another the interpretation of tongues.... And God hath set some in the +Church; first, apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after +that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities +of tongues." The praises of charity and prophecy are sung by the +Apostle--a strange combination in harmony to those who now seek to +separate the Christian faith from its supernatural origins. Christianity +exhorts us not to believe every spirit, but to "try the spirits whether +they are of God," whilst the ecclesiastic bids us chase away the +spirits, which he assumes to be of Satan. + +The dull materialism which smothers all signs of independent spiritual +experience is the negation of all the forces which animated the Master. +The earthly life of Christ, with its supernatural manifestations, its +miracles, and its wonders, was the supreme demonstration of the +spiritualistic conception of the power of transcending matter. The +appearance of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration, whether +regarded as a vision or as a materialization, was of the order of the +phenomena which are now banned as anti-Christian. + +No; those who, having wandered in the darkness of death and blindness, +find a ray of light within their own being need not fear the judgment of +the Mediator. Here in the freedom of the mountains I feel something of +the inscrutable certainty, the joy of a secret conviction, that wisdom +waits on our tortuous paths in the Borderland. + + + + +REFORMERS + + +Of all generalizations--false and semi-false--the one dividing human +beings into those who are content with the world as it is and those who +wish to reform it is the most comforting to me. No division of sheep +and goats was ever more blatantly simple. Some are born dull-witted, +conservative, insensitive, unimaginative--they cling passive to the +old planet, content to be whirled round in the purposeless dance +of the heavenly bodies. Others are chronic sufferers from divine +discontent--they open their eyes with critical intent, they are always +conscious of the oblique, the unrighteous, the worthless in their +surroundings. They have a sense of power, a will to change things. To +them the world is a lump of dough, to be shaped and trimmed into good, +serviceable bread. + +I know the division is unreal and that reformatory ardour in one +direction is not seldom combined with flint-hearted indifference in +another. But the proposition is good and sufficient for everyday +purposes, and acts as an admirable stimulus in the Camp of the +Challengers. + +Who can deny that reformers are more interesting than preservers? They +vibrate with life and creative energy, they defy impossibilities, they +carry enthusiasm aloft on their banners of assault on the existing order +of things. Our preservers seem tame and stale indeed. They hobble about +the borders of the well-cultivated garden of custom and propriety, they +find admirable shelter against the fierce winds of revolt in the offices +of bureaucracy. Officialdom is their divinity and respectability their +key to life. They may be necessary--as buffers--but they depress us by +their dulness. + +Reformers can be dull too, but they are redeemed by the homage which +they pay to spiritual adventures. They are narrow-minded, but their +narrow-mindedness is relieved by intensity of purpose. They are not +seldom aggressive, argumentative, unpleasant, but they refresh the dry +world by being thoroughly alive. It seems, indeed, as if life were only +made tolerable through the ferment of the desire to reform. Even the +most stagnant pools of the human soul are sometimes stirred by the +breeze of change. We all hope, we all look forward, we all grope for a +future which will be better than the present. In some the hope is firmly +rooted to earth and man-made conventions, in others it soars to +other-worldly perfection. + +The world teems with causes and movements that rouse the imagination and +press human lives into the service of the future. The genesis and +development of causes show similar features wherever and whenever they +appear. A soul is astir with an idea, a resentment, a call for change. +Others heed the message, respond to the cry for action, feel that this +idea, this one idea, is the most important in the world. Societies and +leagues are formed, opposition is encountered, and the leader becomes +sanctified through abuse and resentment. The idea is embraced by +hundreds and thousands; it becomes a doctrine, a creed, a mental +atmosphere in which men live and have their being. Fierce battles take +place between the adherents of the idea and the opponents. Blind +prejudice and hatred are encountered. Martyrs are made. The crusade is +hallowed by suffering and sacrifice. It becomes an impelling spiritual +necessity, an expression of religion. Gradually the forces of the +opposition are weakened. Concessions and compromises are offered. There +are signs of the contagiousness of the idea even in the house of the +adversaries. The triumph comes with time, and the turbulent waves of +controversy recede into gentle ripples of approval. And for many a cause +for which men have suffered and died, posterity has but a yawn. "Just +think of it--all that fuss and all that turmoil over something so +obvious." + +Seen superficially, this is a fairly accurate account of the fate of +movements for the reform of some glaring injustice, some hoary cruelty +of the past. But is it true? Is the world slowly but surely getting +better--are the monsters of ignorance and tyranny slain one by one by +our great reformers and laid to rest for ever in a grave of ignominy? We +accept the axiom that slavery has been abolished. Of all causes that +commanded devotion, struggle, persistency, the anti-slavery movement +stands forth as a moral protest of supreme import. Wilberforce and +Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Clarkson fought for a principle +which may well be regarded as the very soul of civilization. The Civil +War brought the ideals of human rights and equality into bloody conflict +with the forces of oppression and commercial exploitation. The new +consciousness of human fellowship made white men lay down their lives +for the freedom of black men. A worthy cause, a sublime offering, a task +to which we would like to say "Done, done, once and for all time!" But +is it done? Slavery is not only inherent in every savage and barbaric +race, it is not only paramount in the mind of the Arab trader. Once the +social bulwark of the ancient civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, and +India, of Greece and Rome, it persisted in Europe throughout the Middle +Ages, and survived as serfdom of one kind or another through centuries +of advancing culture. The desire for power over fellow-beings, for +opportunities to control their lives and exploit their labour, is +apparently irradicable. Slavery is still amongst us in a hundred forms +and under new names. All military conquest involves the ancient +practices of serfdom. The conquered nations become slaves of the +invader; by obedience they live, by disobedience they die. The +persistence of slavery seems, then, to be a demonstration of the +unchangeability of human nature and of the ultimate hopelessness of +idealist causes. In every reform accomplished the practical application +is local, transitory, dependent on racial and geographical conditions. +There is obviously a great change in our penal methods. We do not +mutilate our criminals or scalp them for the preservation of their +souls, and we have lost confidence in the rack and the thumb-screw. But +we need only transport ourselves to other lands and study other people's +views of judicial necessities, and we shall find that the punitive +systems of the thirteenth or the eighteenth centuries are still with us. +Theoretically the blood of the black and the white man is of the same +good quality, and yet very little provocation is needed for the outbreak +of race riots. Negroes and negresses who have given offence to white +people need harbour no illusions concerning the restraining influences +of our Western civilization. + +Like a mountain in eruption the war has thrown up the sordid passions, +the hidden reserves of destructive hate and cruelty in our common human +soul. In war all things are permissible. To murder, to maim, to +destroy, to deceive, to make hideous waste of fertile land, to cause +weeping and wailing amongst the innocent--these are the necessities of +warfare. They are the commonplace incidents of war. There are others. It +brings to the surface strata of human nature to which culture has never +descended. It explodes our humanitarian theories by a series of +well-directed mines. The ancient horrors of devices for the punishment +of the enemy are feeble competitors with our modern inventions. Our +poison gas, our burning oil, our metallic monsters that spit death on +the enemy and crush his fine defences, our flying bomb-throwers, all +show that we have not as yet succumbed to humanitarian or Christian +ethics. There have been some startling illustrations of the folly of +assuming that we have safely and irrevocably traversed certain stages of +human indifference. We shuddered at the revelations which called +Florence Nightingale to the Crimea; we now shudder at the heartless +carelessness revealed by Commissions and Reports. The triumph of Red +Cross organization, the mass of charitable and voluntary effort to +relieve suffering, the heroism and splendour of individual sacrifice, +soften, but do not reverse, the impression of a general humanitarian +debacle. + +We may, of course, take shelter behind the jejune explanation that there +are two worlds with two moralities. One is war and the other is peace. +We may affectionately survey the hospitals and orphanages, the +institutions for the blind and the mute, the asylums and the charities +with which each belligerent country pays tribute to the virtues of the +merciful life. Whatever we do, we cannot dispel the darkness by a +frenzied denunciation of war. The monster is not outside ourselves; it +is created and sustained by the hardness of our hearts and the +obtuseness of our brains. The responsibility is ours in war as well as +in peace. Reformers of all ages have battled with the wickedness of the +world, they have stormed stronghold after stronghold of social iniquity. +Their failures are no less conspicuous than their successes. Human +nature is infinitely pliable and infinitely resistant. + +Is it, then, all a matter of change and recurrence? Do culture and +morality grow like flowers in a garden, obedient to the will and taste +of the gardener, but destined to fade and die with the turn of the +season? Do not the civilizations of the past with their perfection of +knowledge and art mock our faith in the permanency of human achievement? +Babylon and Egypt, Athens and Rome carried the seed of corruption within +their husk of glory. They had elaborate systems of social organization, +of laws, of elucidation of the mysteries of life. They saw beauty and +pursued it, in colour and sound, by word and chisel. The gods were kind +to them, and now and then dispensed with altar and temple. Divine +presences revealed themselves in brook and cornfield, on mountain-tops +and in the faces of animals. Reformers of all kinds were amongst them: +men of the sword with dreams of Empire and conquest for the good of the +nation, priests who demanded sacrifice in the name of a god, orators who +by skilful laying of words taught the art of philosophic calm. Problems +faced them, social iniquities troubled them; they grappled with morals +and strove to build up a better and happier future. + +I was sinking into a reverie over the fall of Babylon and the problems +of recurrence when Marie-Joseph arrived. Marie-Joseph is my oldest and +dearest peasant friend. She is over seventy and devoted to hard work. +Her face is rosy and wrinkled, and when she laughs it becomes a mass of +merry furrows. Her body gives one the impression of an animated board. +It is strikingly flat and stiff, and proudly erect. She works in the +fields and tends the cows, and when she bends down to hoe the potatoes +or cut the grass, she just folds herself in two. The stiff straight back +in the neat black dress is different from all the other toiling backs on +the slopes. When I look down from the mountain-tops to the pastures and +plots below, I can always distinguish the back of Marie-Joseph from the +others. To-day she brought me a present of milk and potatoes, and we sat +down to chat over a cup of coffee--nay, four cups of coffee, for +Marie-Joseph has no cranky ideas about abstinence from food and drink, +and I must, perforce, pretend I have none. I love her and her ways, +though she always manages to disturb me when I wish to work or think. +Writing and thinking are not work to Marie-Joseph. She is wholly +innocent of the former dissipation and carries out the latter function +without any trouble or fuss. She is, therefore, justified in disposing +of my painful efforts with a contemptuous shrug of her wooden +shoulders. + +"Marie-Joseph," I said cautiously, when I had watched the third cup of +coffee disappear, and duly discussed butter and cheese, wine and cows, +"do you think the world is getting better?" She was slicing a chunk of +bread with her capacious pocket-knife, and stopped short. Her small +bright blue eyes peered at me curiously. "I mean, do you believe there +is real progress--that we are better than we used to be?" + +The knife came dancing down on the plate. "Better?" she said; "not at +all; we are worse. Why, when I was young we used constantly to have +processions and carry le Bon Dieu, and I tell you the harvest was +different from what it is now. And the young girls were modest then; +they all wore aprons, and our cure used to insist on them wearing +aprons, for, said he, all women should wear aprons." + +"All women should wear aprons," I repeated mechanically, as my thoughts +flitted back to Babylon. + +Marie-Joseph saw and misinterpreted my disappointment. "Did you grasp +what I said?" she asked; "there is no modesty nowadays. And you people +who come from England," she added sternly, "with your short skirts and +your peculiar ways, don't improve matters." + +I felt duly rebuked, and during the rest of the hour which Marie-Joseph +wasted on me, I sought to re-establish myself in her opinion by +discoursing on the merits of _soupe au fromage_. + +We all have our chosen test of moral worth, and perhaps our judgment of +the decline and rise of social virtue is as easily swayed by personal +predilection as was that of Marie-Joseph. To me the persistence of the +same cruel and stupid customs throughout the centuries is a source of +perplexed pessimism. I cannot brush aside the problem by a facile +reference to reincarnation. If John the brigand was a cut-throat and a +robber in his twentieth appearance on this planet, why should he persist +in these idiosyncrasies in his twenty-third return as George the +politician and successful captain of industry? This is not at all a fair +representation of the theory of reincarnation, I shall be told. It is +not, but it is one of those to which we are driven in the desperation +of impatience. A friend of mine, a high authority on matters +theosophical, knows of a potent explanation and anodyne for moral +impatience. Humanity, he tells me, is always being recruited from Mars. +Mars, in spite of its canals, is a low and wicked planet, with a +reptilian population. When the Martians advance a little beyond the +moral status of their fellow-creatures and close their bloodthirsty eyes +in death, their spirits are wafted to our planet, there to take on new +garments of flesh. The influx of brutal souls is perennial. This +explains why, Churches and missionary effort notwithstanding, we have +always savages, cannibals, and barbarians (and Prussian militarists?) +with us. But there is comfort in the other side of the picture. When we +in our turn have learnt all the lessons of this miserable globe of +folly, when we have mastered all the virtues and shed all the vices, +when we long to be free from the trammels of sense and appetite and +sickness and ambition, we are transferred to Mercury. Mercury is a +highly evolved planet, a spiritualized existence, free from the +obsessions of sex and greed, an abode of love and freedom. + +Oh, how I sigh for Mercury! + +Supposing this sinful earth is only a school for reformed Martians; +supposing human nature and history always repeat themselves, and the end +is as the beginning and the beginning as the end? The first steps in +education accomplished, the scholars would be removed to better +premises, and to a more advanced course of instruction. But the old +school would receive new pupils and go on in the same humdrum way. There +would be the same harsh teachers, the same ignorance and obstinacy, the +same punishment and suffering. The worst of it is that Mercury does not +seem exempt from the general curse of nothingness which seems to brood +over all physical existence. There is no stability even in solar +systems. Even we puny creatures can divine something of their birth and +death. Out of whirling nebulae suns and planets are born; souls slowly +evolve on worlds which were once balls of fire. There are endless +diversity and specialization, myriads of creatures rise out of the +furnace of life. Some gain ascendancy and lay claim to mental supremacy, +to science and religion and the overlordship of the universe. I am sure +Mars, Mercury, and Tellus are equally prone to this weakness. One +day--in the uncountably many of solar mornings--there is a collision, a +breaking up of all the old forms through contact with some mysterious +roving mass of burning matter. The planets with their kings and prophets +disappear in fire and gas, The perturbation in the vast Cosmos of Change +is probably not greater than that caused by the fall of an old and +rotten tree before the cleansing winds of spring. + +All mankind clings to the hope that something escapes destruction and +rises unchangeable and eternal above the domain of nothingness. In that +hope we strive for better things and go forth to reform life, and in the +striving we find our spirit. We know we are shortsighted and sometimes +blind, and that the fight is often hopeless. But the joy, the +imperishable joy, lies in the struggle. Don Quixote is inexpressibly +dear to us because he personifies the ridiculous tasks which we attempt, +though we know them to be ridiculous. + +There is a human need which is always paramount, yet surprisingly little +recognized. It is the need of an enemy. Life is a perpetual looking +forward to a time when we shall have conquered. We are happiest when we +see the enemy in all his ugliness and wickedness, and can draw our +swords without any doubt as to his presence. We prefer solid dragons of +evil to flitting butterflies of sin. We are ever in search of the enemy +in our schemes of reform, our political wrangles, our moral crusades. +The growth of individuality is indissolubly bound up with cognizance of +the enemy. He may be hiding in the bowels of the earth, defying the +attempt to tame the soil to our advantage; he may be mocking our efforts +to find scientific solutions to the riddles of nature; he may be +encamped in our own souls, confounding our goodness and demolishing our +moral defences. But he must be there. Without him life would be +stagnant, energy and virtue purposeless. + +War satisfies the human hunger for a sight of the enemy. All the vague +sense of evil which in peace-time makes the morality of our next-door +neighbour a matter of anxious concern to us is now solidified in hatred +of the foe of the country. Smaller enmities are patched, national +brotherhood is recognized. The country at war with us becomes the +target of all our moral bullets. Tyranny, cruelty, lust, greed, and all +manner of abomination dwell there; its people are the servants of +Antichrist. + +The evil seen in the enemy stimulates unseen good in the masses, to whom +the sacrifices of war would be impossible but for the conviction that +the nations have been sharply divided into sheep and goats. The +abolition of war will come about when we have learnt to eliminate sham +enemies and to recognize the real one within our own hearts. In our +present stage of cosmic education, the idea of a negative peace is +entirely repellent. Now and then, after a bout of too much talking or +too much doing, we may dwell tenderly on the thought of complete +inaction and stillness. A nightmare is an excellent means of inducing a +desire for dreamless sleep. But normal, natural humanity shuns complete +rest. Hence the notorious failure--mental and physical--of complete +holidays. We must attack something, and if there is no work to attack, +we attack the inanimate stupidity of our surroundings. It is strange +that the laborious task once achieved should so often become the thing +abhorred. Scales fall from our eyes, perspective is restored, and we see +what a trumpery affair held us enthralled. I have often thought with +dismay of the effect on scores of reformers, whom I know, if the reform +to which they have sworn allegiance should be accomplished. To many this +would be a personal disaster of the gravest kind. For years they have +poured their mental energy and their devotion into one channel. The +enemy was always there, to be beaten at sunrise and cursed at sunset. +The cause inspired high ideals and hard work; self and selfish matters +were neglected in the pursuit of victory. Life eventually became +identified with the cause and its vicissitudes, and, like the picture in +Olive Schreiner's story, the work took on brighter and more wonderful +colour, whilst the painter became paler and paler. Narrowness of vision +and purpose became essential conditions of efficiency, and gradually +human attributes became sharpened into fanatical weapons of assault. Few +reformers live to see the triumph of their cause, and fewer still +succeed in preserving equilibrium of judgment. + +There is, verily, every excuse for the pointed energy of reformers. The +world is full of horrors that cry aloud for extirpation; one head +cannot easily harbour knowledge of all the strongholds of wickedness. +True, those who are called by the spirit to become missionaries of mercy +can harbour a greater measure of sympathy than the average man. The +average man suffers through incapacity to reach the fountain of +spiritual replenishment at which the saints refresh their parched +throats. An acute sensitiveness to the suffering of others, without a +corresponding power to reach the sources of comfort, leads to the abyss +of madness. Nature imposes limits to sympathy in most minds, barriers of +forgetfulness without which healthy thought is impossible. The danger to +the mind of indulging in unlimited sympathy has been emphasized by the +most divergent students of psychological law. Herbert Spencer analysed +it with characteristic thoroughness. Nietzsche went farther. He reacted +violently against the onslaughts of pity in his own soul, and in +philosophical self-defence inverted the promptings of compassion. The +war has shown the human need of self-defence against excessive sympathy. +We are surfeited with horrors on land and sea; the ghastly truth of a +carnage which exceeds anything known in history, of maimed and broken +lives, of starving and homeless people, is shunned lest we lose our +reason in impotent and disruptive pity. The man of bayonet and bomb, who +a short time ago spent mildly exciting days over his desk in the City, +and who was anxiously concerned over the indisposition of his +neighbour's cat, has made himself a heart of steel for the purposes of +the war. If sympathy interfered with the issue of every bullet and the +thrust of every bayonet, there would be an end to military efficiency. +The civilian has not seldom gone far beyond the needs of emotional +self-defence and equipped himself with a heart of stone. The perfect Man +of Sympathy--controlling His sympathy, yet radiating it to all the world +and its sins--was Jesus Christ. His compassion had none of the corrosive +qualities which drove Nietzsche to distraction. He could retain the +consciousness of all the suffering which men inflict on fellow-creatures +and yet keep ever abundant the measure of His pity and the regenerating +power of His love. He saw the root of our evil, the one cause and the +one remedy. He is the catholic and consistent reformer, whilst we--we +of the smaller measure--flounder in the web of a hundred causes. + +Each cause can be endowed with an importance which outdoes all the +others. Education--can any one deny the overwhelming need of proper +concentration on its possibilities? "Here we have a generation of +ignorant, selfish, immoral creatures, devoid of a sense of social +responsibility," says our first reformer; "why, the remedy is obvious: +let us begin with the children in the schools. Is any one so dense as +not to perceive the all-pervading importance of the guidance we give to +the young?" + +"It is no use beginning with the children whilst those who teach them +are so hopelessly sunk in materialism and stupidity," says our second +reformer. "Look at the education laws; they are all ill-conceived and +ill-administered. Education is not only a failure; it is a dead-weight +of falsehood and class tyranny which hampers progress. Let us go +straight for socialism and equal human rights and opportunities. Your +education is only used to perpetuate industrial slavery and to keep the +children of the working classes ignorant of the blood-sucking system +into whose meshes they will be thrown unless we combine and make our +influence felt now." + +"You are neglecting the most obvious duties which should come first," +says the quiet and motherly voice of the third reformer; "infants die by +the hundred thousand owing to neglect. There will soon be no babies for +you to instruct either in materialism or socialism. The race will die +out whilst you talk. Look at the slums and the careless, ignorant +mothers; we want infant-welfare work, we want a new baby cult, we want +to teach people parental responsibility." + +"Nonsense," breaks in the virile voice of the fourth reformer; "what you +want is to take people away from the slums, to bring them back to the +country. Land nationalization is what we need--a free, healthy life, far +removed from the factories that kill soul and body by the grinding +monotony of existence. Man was made for life on the soil, for contact +with sun and wind, flowers and trees. They will give health and life to +your babies." + +"Your schemes have only a secondary importance"--the voice of a +prominent suffragist is now heard. "Give women the vote and these +reforms will follow. Men have made all these abominable laws and +customs; women will bring in just and human laws and change all social +life. As for the suggestion that country life will improve the standard +of living, I can only say that it is made in ignorance of the real +conditions. Look at the farm labourer's wife and her home-life. She is +often the most miserable, worn-out creature, who tries in vain to keep +the children and herself properly fed and clothed. Her life is a long +travesty of the laws of health." + +"Naturally," comments the temperance reformer, "whilst you allow the +labourer to soak himself in drink and to spend his money at the +public-house. Drink is the root of all our social troubles: it ruins the +body and corrupts the mind, it poisons the unborn children, fills our +prisons and asylums. You may legislate and equalize opportunities as +much as you please; so long as you allow the cursed liberty of drink +there can be no health and no human decency. Prohibition is the most +urgent of all our needs." + +An athletic-looking young man, rosy-cheeked and clear-eyed, who had been +listening with a somewhat supercilious smile, now joins in the debate. +"There would be no need for you to bother about drink if you could +persuade people to give up flesh-eating. Vegetarianism is the cure of +all ills. It drives away disease and the craving for stimulants, it +gives you pure blood and a desire for the really simple life. I live in +a tent on ninepence a day and sleep in the open. I grow my own fruit and +vegetables and do my own cooking. Thoreau is my master and Carpenter my +friend. I hate smoky cities with their slums and their shambles and your +whole sickly civilization." + +"Sickly!" repeats a Christian Scientist, with reproachful emphasis on +the word. The speaker is a woman of sixty, whose face bears the stamp of +successful self-discipline and a sound physique. "I have seen +vegetarians who looked extremely sickly. Before I became a Christian +Scientist I, too, sought health by various systems of diet. Now I know +that all disease is but an error of mortal mind, and in _Science and +Health_, by Mrs. Eddy, we are told----" + +She was not allowed to finish her sentence, for a Congregational +minister, famous for his pulpit denunciations of sin, has risen and +gravely waves his hand to ensure a respectful hearing. "All you people," +he says, in a voice vibrating with solemn indignation, "are pursuing +fleeting shadows. The kingdom of God is within. This false cult of +health by self-hypnotism, or health by living like the beasts in the +field, gives undue weight to things which, after all, relate to the +body. It is the _soul_ of man that is important, not where he lives or +what he eats. We need the fear of God and the thirst for His mercy; we +need the Divine guidance which will transform and sanctify our social +relations." + +"And pray how has the Church dealt with the war?" cries the pacifist who +has now risen, his eyes ablaze with denunciation of the minister. "The +Christian Church--established or unestablished--is nothing but the +handmaid of the politician and the State, the servile echo of +capitalists and diplomatists. You talk of Divine guidance and the +sanctification of life. How do you respect life and the teaching of +Jesus Christ? Jesus said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, +do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you +and persecute you.' You, His professed followers, bless war and its +orgies of hate. You stand by hypocritically thanking God for your own +sanctity, whilst Christians drench battlefields with the blood of +Christians. The abolition of war is the reform to which you should all +bend your lives and direct your prayers. Even now you have not learnt +your lesson. Your social order, your laws, your constitution, your +personal liberties, your lives and those of your children, are thrown to +the Juggernaut of war, and yet you continue your futile pursuit of +shadows. Without peace there can be no reform." + +I have joined in the debate, I have heard all these voices. They are +familiar to me with the familiarity of the songs of our childhood. Their +sentiment is true, oh so true! yet so sadly inadequate. The reformers +are valiant and true, and every one has hitched his waggon to his pet +star. Happiest are those who do not encounter the cross-influence of +rival stars or see the irony of our human limitation of sight and +achievement. The blood-red cross of the crusader will stand no admixture +of colour. The soul dominated by one idea gains ground. Henri Dunant, +Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, General Booth, Josephine +Butler--these succeed by dint of their singleness of purpose. The +narrowness serves to concentrate the strength and accelerate the work. + +The reformer may be bigoted and unreasonable, but he must be an optimist +whilst pursuing his object. He must believe in life and in the inherent +goodness of the earth. He must be a stranger to the dyspeptic melancholy +through which Carlyle saw the world as a "noisy inanity" and life as an +incomprehensible monstrosity. Macbeth is called to denounce life as "a +tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury," and "signifying +nothing." Macbeth must be shunned by the reformer as the monk repels the +visits of Satan in the desert. He must share the hopefulness of Sir +Thomas More. Utopia is possible here, now, and everywhere, though +execution is likely to be the penalty of too close application to +principles. + +He must not fear the companionship of the crank. He had better recognize +that he is one. What is a crank? The dictionary is somewhat vague as to +the meaning. I find that the verb is unravelled as "bend, wind, turn, +twist, wind in and out, crankle, crinkle." The last two appeal to me +strongly. How I have crankled and crinkled over wrongs and horrors +which I have discovered on my little path! No crank can see his +crankiness at the time of crankling, though sometimes he sees it +afterwards. The crank is a person who holds views which to us seem +ridiculous. The man who first objected to cannibalism was a crank. The +man who first thought lunatics should not be chained to walls or left +naked on unsavoury beds of straw was a crank. Galileo was an +intellectual crank of the shameless type. Shelley is the beautiful crank +of all times, champion of forlorn causes, the inspired rebel of the +spirit. + +There are small and noisy and irritating cranks. I have met scores of +them. They are intense, but shortsighted. Some are delightfully +ingenuous, with the lovable simplicity of the child. Others are of a +morbid and carping disposition, with an inordinate sense of their own +importance. + +I have for many years been the privileged though unworthy recipient of +confidences and schemes for the elimination of all manner of cruelty and +wickedness from the world. My office in Piccadilly has received within +its sympathetic walls a procession of born cranks, of souls charged with +high missions for the betterment of the world. Faddists, eccentrics, +dreamers, mystics, workers chained to lifelong slavery by their dominant +idea, have poured out their plans to me. Sometimes visitors came who +clearly had crossed the unguarded frontier between sanity and insanity, +interesting and pathetic and clever, yet of the great order of God's +fools. They were not unhappy, for their path was brilliantly lit by an +idea, whilst the rest of the world was plunged in darkness. They would +scold me and pity me because I refused to follow their light, but they +were never unkind. + +There is an old blue easy-chair in the office, dilapidated and +springless, in which I have deposited my cranks. I always choose a hard, +uncomfortable seat opposite, from which I conduct my defence against the +insidious appeal of the visitors. Their faces do not fade from my +memory. They haunt me with a gentle refrain of the world-as-it-might-be. +The world as they would like it to be is certainly not always habitable, +but it is generally one of exuberant imaginative verdure. + +Here is the man who wants to abolish sex. He believes in spirit. He is +timid and womanly, his mind is pure and inexpressibly shocked at the +carnal desires which disfigure the otherwise fair picture of humanity. +Love, marriage, procreation, cannot these be purged from the base and +degrading obsessions of sex? By abstinence, by concentration, we may +eliminate them. Surely the story of the Fall makes it quite clear that +we were never meant to perpetuate such gross mistakes.... Here is the +woman who believes sex to be the source of all good, all life, all joy. +She holds a medical degree and is passionately opposed to the +emancipation of womanhood. She is unmarried, and dresses with +old-fashioned emphasis of the eternal feminine. With a soft and languid +smile she deprecates the fate which sent her to the medical school +instead of the nursery. "Why," she tells me, with radiant eyes, +"everything is sex; poetry, painting, sculpture, religion are sex. Women +who suppress their sexual nature by pursuing the chimerical advantages +of votes and professions are guilty of race-suicide. Race-suicide must +be stopped." There is the believer in the immediate return of Jesus +Christ and the approaching end of the world. He comes as a convert with +a message, and laden with books of prophecy. A year ago he was still a +successful man of business, and a gay soul with no inclination towards +the holy life. The merry twinkle in his eye has disappeared, and in its +place I see the dull glow of an obsessing idea. "What is the good of all +your struggle and your agitation?" he says; "everything will come right +and the wicked will be punished. Join me in proclaiming the coming of +the Lord. Let people be warned and repent in time." There is the lively, +mercurial lady in green who deals in statesmanship and high politics, +who knows everybody of importance, and who controls the fate of nations +through her magic influence behind the scenes. To-day she has been to +the War Office, yesterday the Home Office trembled at her approach, +to-morrow certain officials in high diplomatic circles will know to +their cost what she thinks of them. There is the pompous lady of a +hundred committees. She has a passion for committees, and no sooner has +she formed one or sat on one than she discovers the general unworthiness +of the assembly. She comes to expose people, to prove how utterly +incapable they are of managing affairs. + +The priestess of some system of New Thought arrives. She is pleasant and +unruffled. "Can you deny," she asks, "that nothing exists for you but +that which you allow to enter your mind?" No, I cannot. "Very well, +then, you can control the universe by thought. You can gain happiness, +health, peace of mind, and long life. By thought and meditation you can +make for yourself a world of harmony, a consciousness which excludes +everything that is ugly and painful and jarring." I murmur that this is +no doubt possible, but it seems a trifle selfish whilst so many human +souls are struggling in the sea of trouble. I am sharply pulled up. "I +thought you would be too immersed in the wretched folly of agitation to +understand," she says; "I came to show you the better way." She is +followed by the clothes enthusiast. He wears sandals and has discarded +the abomination of starched linen. "We are forming a Society for the +Revival of Greek Clothing," he announces. "From the aesthetic and the +hygienic points of view, nothing is more important than the clothes we +wear." I venture on a feeble Teufelsdroeckh joke. He does not condescend +to listen. "We must get rid of hideous trousers and feet-strangling +skirts [I am lost in admiration over the indictment of the skirt, for I +remember a certain reception in Washington in the days of the +snake-skirt when I stumbled and fell at a moment when a little dignity +would have been my most precious possession]; we must wear loose white +draperies amenable to the air and the washtub." I quite agree, but raise +some practical obstacles and a few conventional pegs of delay. They +prove intolerable, and my visitor departs convinced that I am not one of +the elect. + +Missionaries of dietetics come in a motley procession. There is the man +who believes we can eat anything provided we masticate everything with +bovine thoroughness; there is the man who believes that we ought to eat +nothing during long bouts of purgative fasting, and who lives cheerfully +and inexpensively on hot water during two yearly periods of twenty days. +There is the woman who has found the nearest approach to nectar and +ambrosia in the uncooked fruits and vegetables of the earth, which, +properly pounded, are digested, and make of our sluggish bodies fit +receptacles for Olympian wisdom. There are the people who have +discovered the one cause of all disease. It may be uric acid or cell +proliferation or hard water--there is always a complementary cure. I +listened one day with much interest to an exposition of the evils of +salt. Salted food, I was told, is the cause of our troubles. We are +salted and dried until all power of recuperation is driven out of our +nerves and muscles. I was asked to study the subject. The theory was +well supported by scientific reasoning and evidence, and on the +following evening I had thoroughly entered into the saltless ideal. A +vision of the dispirited haddock had materially assisted my conclusion +when a visitor was announced. He was preceded by a card showing +impressively that he was a man of learning in theories of disease. "I +have come," he said, "in the hope that you will take an interest in my +experiments and conclusions with regard to disease in general. I have +discovered that the one cure for rheumatism, consumption, and cancer is +salt, plenty of common salt." + +The trouble with all these people is not that they are all wrong. They +are probably all right. It is a question of angles and quality of the +grey matter of the brain. The trouble is the limitation of experience +and outlook imposed by fate upon each individual. + +A league or society is theoretically the one human institution which is +akin to heaven. You have an object and a programme. You know you are +occupied with the most important task in the world. But you feel +powerless alone. You send out your appeal for support and kindred souls +flock to your banner. Can anything be more soul-satisfying than a +community of those who think alike, who feel alike, and who work for the +same end? Anarchy is impossible, and you decide on a constitution and +rules for the management of your spiritual brotherhood. A committee is +appointed to control the affairs of the union, and officials to carry +out its wishes. Now you have the ideal of which you dreamt, the pure +collective force which should prove irresistible. Friends within and +enemies without. + +But you have not excluded the canker of human differences. Your kindred +souls discover that, though they think alike on the one point which drew +you together, they differ strongly on others. There are other opinions, +religious and political, than those which come within the purview of +your little organization. You surprise some of your friends in the act +of discussing your denseness in matters of which they have a firm and +clear grasp. You begin to wonder how it is possible for people who have +such a perfect vision of certain necessary lines of reform to manifest +such unmitigated stupidity in regard to others. If you are wise, you +resign yourself to the inevitable divergence of mind; if they are wise, +they agree to pardon your shortcomings. + +Fanatics flower in a society like poppies in a wheat-field. They have +lost sight of everything but the urgency of the cause. They are +intolerant because they have no knowledge of human nature and no +self-criticism wherewith to check the wild ideas that sprout beneath +their immense self-confidence. They turn withering scorn on committees +and officials who refuse to give effect to their suggestions to burn the +House of Commons, or stop the traffic of London, or commit combined +suicide in Hyde Park as a protest against the continuance of the +iniquity which they denounce. They would do things in a different +manner. They intend to show the world and politicians that their views +cannot be ignored with impunity. For you and your lukewarm followers +they have nothing but contempt--the contempt which is earned by the +coward. The fanatic is troublesome, but comparatively easy to deal with. +There is another product of organized reform on which you cannot so +easily shut the door. It is the ideologue who rides the scheme to death. +It is the doctrinaire who must form systems within systems and policies +within policies. It is not enough that you have set out to suppress +something or to encourage something. You must follow his particular +way. He is in terror of compromise and sees profligacy in sweet +reasonableness. He knows the tragic failure of other movements with +vacillating policies. This one must be saved at all costs. 'Twere better +to smash the whole movement than proceed along undesirable lines. He +would scorn victory that came through avenues not recognized by him. +Certain words and phrases have completely captivated his imagination. +With them he fences heroically and causes a sufficiency of clatter and +noise. He is in deadly earnest and will brook no rivals. Parties within +parties are formed, and the energies which should be directed towards +fighting opponents are absorbed in combat within the society. + +There is another element of disaster which now and then gains ascendancy +in the community of reformers. It is the professional agitator, the +parasite who will speak for or against a principle according to the +economic advantage which one side or the other may offer. You may +hold that such a man is not altogether undesirable, provided he can +"organize" and persuade people that the society is worthy of support. +You may think that he is no more blameworthy than the lawyer who pleads +your views so eloquently and who handles the jury with such consummate +skill, though his sole incentive is your fee and not your case. If you +act on such a belief and allow your professional agitator to manage your +society, you will certainly one day find your ideals turned to ashes and +your organization for moral action turned into money-making machinery. + +Whilst life teaches you that societies are frail human institutions and +that conferences and congresses do not bring about the millennium, you +are saved from despair if you keep ever fresh your sense of humour. + +There are problems in the life of the reformer which the mountains never +fail to put before me. I have so often come to them from the heat and +turmoil of controversy. I have come like a soldier from battle, covered +with mud and slightly wounded, yet exultant in the spirit of the fray. +The mountains speak to me, and lo! another self appears. They speak to +me of beauty, of peace, of the infinite mystery of life; they give me +broad effects of light and shade, and obliterate the small pictures +which pursue me on the plains. Yesterday, in the stillness of Alpine +midwinter, the moon shone clear and full on the glacier. I sat gazing +at the outlines of the peaks trembling in the pale light of a perfect +evening. The noisy mountain torrents were held captive in prisons of +ice, but here and there the sound of an irrepressible rivulet threading +its underground way through stones and earth brought to my ears a song +of spring. I love the trees, the sky, the snow--all my senses respond to +the call of the solitude of Nature. I felt free and happy; I sank into +the state of bliss in which the soul is conscious of no desire. Surely +this is better than the strife and the sordid cares of the camp; +surely one may walk apart and enjoy the fruits of tranquillity? Our +consciousness can admit but an infinitesimal part of that which is: let +us then fill it to the brim with the joy of beauty, with the harmony of +being at rest. Then I remembered the things which lay beyond my peaks +and my moonlight: a vision of prisons and shambles, of battlefields and +slums, passed before my eyes. How can one forget! How can one enjoy +peace and beauty! Duty bids us to descend, love bids us to share the +suffering. + +And yet are there not two ways of seeking perfection, two paths clearly +defined and well trodden throughout the ages--reform of self and reform +of others? What may at first sight appear as aesthetic or mystic egoism +is perhaps the better way. The hermit who forsakes the world and +renounces the social ties and burdens which most men count of value is +bent on the purification of his own soul. Monasticism--with all its +faults--recognized the essential need of self-examination and +self-discipline. It bade us cleanse our souls, conquer our own +temptations, by a rigid system of religious exercise. Our modern +reformer is not always conscious of any need for self-reform. He lustily +attacks the misdoings of others and remains happily ignorant of the +Socratic rule, _Know thyself_. "Every unordered spirit is its own +punishment," says St. Augustine, and the disorder is not removed by +assaulting the faults of others. We have, first and last, to be +captains of our own souls. There is an element of absurdity in the +thought that the aim and purpose of human life is for each soul to hunt +for the sins and imperfections in others. The enjoinment of +self-criticism and self-culture seems a simpler and less circumstantial +rule of life. Asceticism, abnegation, prayer, remoteness from the +passions that rend the worldly, bring peace and content. But they limit +experience and give a false simplicity to the problems of life. Early +Christian monasticism held that as this world is the domain of the +devil, the only safety lies in flight from it. Such a view precludes the +possibility of social reform on a general and lasting basis. It has a +radical consistency and a scientific precision which are only disturbed +by the course of actual events. Supposing all humanity could be +withdrawn, every precious brand snatched from the burning and the whole +made into a vast monastery? The devil would be sure to slip in and cause +a disturbance. + +The social reformer assumes that the world is worthy of his care, and +that we are here to make it as habitable as we can. He lives in the +midst of sinful humanity and accepts the inheritance of earthly +conventions. He may choose to live in the slums whilst his spirit +clamours for a hermitage amongst the blue hills. His ways may be +crotchety and his temper irritable--what does it matter so long as he is +carrying out his appointed task in the cosmic order? + +To the true nature-lover there is no renunciation in forsaking the +things prized by most men. His virtue may be vice concealed; he gathers +bliss where others find boredom. Give me a tree, a perfect tree, and you +may keep your palaces. Give me the green fields with a hundred thousand +flowers, and you may keep your streets and your piles of gold. Give me +the wild wind and the breath of the torrent, and I have no wish to hear +your hymns. There is a brazen self-sufficiency about the nature-lover +which baffles and offends the mind of the crowd. The most amazing thing +about him is that he turns hardship and deprivation into pleasure. Take +away his house and he shelters in a cave. Deprive him of your company +and he laughs to himself. Take away his possessions and he tells you he +is rich because he wants so little, whilst you are poor, for you have +surrounded yourself with a hundred unnecessary wants. Like Antaeus, the +mythical giant, he derives his strength and his power to overcome +enemies from contact with the earth. He discovers a mode of being, +behind and beyond ordinary existence. He says to the busy crowds of +industry and commerce, to the men and women who wear out their lives in +the joyless chase of success: "You will die before you know satisfaction +and rest. Come and be human, come and grow in the sunshine and the +rain." He finds that two-thirds of the reforms for which men labour +would not be needed if the artificialities of society were abandoned. He +is, of course, unpractical and self-centred. Listen to Thoreau, the +arch-enemy of the social treadmill, and to his scorn of reformers: + + Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If + anything ail a man so that he does not perform his functions, + if he have a pain in his bowels even--for that is the seat of + sympathy--he forthwith sets about reforming--the world. Being a + microcosm himself, he discovers--and it is a true discovery, and + he is the man to make it--that the world has been eating green + apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green + apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children + of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic + philanthropy seeks out the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and + embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus by a + few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile + using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his + dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its + cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its + crudity and is once more sweet and wholesome to live. + +And whilst thus branding those who set out to reform others, he shows +his adherence to the great order of self-reformers by the following +conclusion: + + I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I + never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself. + +Thoreau cultivates simplicity with an intense regard for the effect on +himself. He is--in spite of his seclusion--above all a prophet amongst +men. He made great discoveries in the realm of the mind--the mind +attending closely to Nature, but he is too much the naturalist and the +land-surveyor to lose himself in the raptures of nature love. He is a +stranger to the ethereal touch with which Fiona Macleod opens the magic +door of that which is felt but not seen in earth and sky. He misses the +mystic hour when ghosts of the green life are about. That hour has been +seized by Algernon Blackwood, who makes us feel the fascination, the +vague dread of the elemental powers. There is a dream-wood in which the +souls of all things intermingle, and once imprisoned there, the +nature-lover may not escape until he has paid toll to the pixies. + +There is, after all, nothing incompatible in the life of self-enrichment +and the life of self-expenditure. They are interdependent, and rule the +ancient order of gnosis and praxis. Whether we go to nature or religion +or science for replenishment, we must be filled. And the ironic power +which presides over our feasts compels the most inveterate egoist +amongst us to share his treasures. Mind is for ever craving to give to +mind. If we want nothing better than to boast of our superiority, the +boasting imparts a lesson to others and is therefore a gift. But the +reforming spirit spares few who think. It is generally believed that the +purely literary mind scorns the idea of reforming: that art is above +moral purpose. I have yet to discover the purely literary mind. Homer +and Shakespeare, Goethe and Dante are clearly not of it. Shakespeare, so +say the wiseacres, is the strictly impartial dramatist. He depicts the +good and the bad, the great and the small, with complete detachment. +Naturally, the art is the detachment and the lesson is in the perfect +representation. The literary man may indignantly repudiate the idea of +"preaching." "To go preach to the first passer by," wrote Montaigne, "to +become tutor to the ignorance of the first I meet, is a thing I abhor." +He may have abhorred the idea, but through his essays he made himself +tutor to innocence and the model of subjective moralizing. + +However widely we roam the Republic of Letters, we meet no citizen +without a badge of consecrated service. Pretenders, perhaps, usurpers of +the titles of others, men to whom literature is nothing but merchandise. +These may be totally free from the impulse. Tolstoy, Ibsen, Hauptmann, +Hugo are reformers of the first order, whose words are charged with +revolt. The transcendentalism of Emerson, the naturalism of Zola, the +cynicism of La Rochefoucauld are all convergent streams in the torrent +of reforming words which make the soul fertile. + +No; the tame and vapid acquiescents are not to be found in literature. +Sometimes they furnish material for literature. Their principal use in +life is to kindle the souls of reformers with the resentment of which +great deeds are born. + + + + +NATIONALITY + + +I can remember no time in my life when I was not addicted to the study +of humanity. The marvels of faces, types, and characteristics were, I +feel sure, with me in my cradle. At the age of ten I had evolved a kind +of astrological chart of my own, according to which all human beings, +including uncles and aunts, grandmothers and children, could be placed +in twelve categories. There were the long-nosed, thin-lipped, +sandy-haired, over-principled people, who always knew right from wrong +and who grudged me an extra chocolate because it was not the hour to +have one. There were the snub-nosed, full-lipped, dark-eyed people, +whose manners were jolly and who positively encouraged illicit +consumption of fruit in the thin-lipped aunt's garden. There were the +shortsighted, solemn people with bulging foreheads and studious habits +who saw print and nothing else. They bored me and belonged to my +eleventh category. As far as I can see now, my categories were a florid +elaboration of the four temperaments of Hippocrates, though I have no +idea of the cause of my childish absorption in the subject. It was +certainly altogether spontaneous and not encouraged, for I have a vivid +recollection of how an eager and eloquent description of my categories +(profusely illustrated by mimicry) brought me a sharp reprimand and a +very nasty tonic. The tonic was taken under compulsion, but the cure is +still unaccomplished. + +And now for many years I have sat at my chalet window and seen the world +go by. The path from the village below to the peaks and pastures above +runs past my nest. On it, in the summer months, there was a straggling +procession of tourists and climbers, peasants and townsfolk. They were +of all nationalities, and their loud voices proclaimed the immutability +of the curse of Babel. I used to be annoyed at the close proximity of +the path, until, one day, I discovered its marvellous opportunities for +anthropological research. Then I settled down, content to limit my +wooing of the solitude to the early morning and the late evening, or the +time when the wild autumnal gales brush the mountains clear of trippers +and paint the surrounding foliage in glorious tints of red and gold. +For I assure you the proper study of man is man, and the proper study of +woman is both man and woman. + +Here comes the Parisian youth with his charming young mamma of forty. +His face is pale and _distingue_, and the black down on his upper lip +has been trained with infinite care. Though his grey mountain suit is +fashioned for great feats of daring, it has the rounded waist and +martial shoulder-lines with which the Parisian tailor pacifies his +conscience when he supplies English fashions. His stockings look +ferocious. His dark eyes sparkle with inquisitiveness behind the +pince-nez. He is vivacity incarnate, he is urbanity on a holiday. Mamma +takes his arm and they trip past me. She is pretty, and would be plump +if the art of the _corsetiere_ had not abolished plumpness. Her hat +conveys a greeting from the Rue Lafayette, her little high-heeled boots +show faultless ankles and the latest way of lacing up superfluous fat +above them. A hole and two uneven stones maliciously intercept the +progress of that little foot. Mamma stumbles, and is promptly and +chivalrously replaced in an upright position by the son. "Mon Dieu!" she +cries; "what a path!" and through my open window there floats the odour +of _poudre-de-riz_ disturbed by nervous excitement. Papa follows. He is +fat. No one can deny it, and I do not think he would like any one to +try. Honesty is writ large on his rotund countenance. Now he is hot and +somewhat weary with the climb. He carries his hat under his arm and +large pearls of moisture shine on the puckered forehead. His hair is +thick and closely cropped, and strives upward with the even aspiration +of a doormat. His cheeks are a little sallow and pendulous. He smiles +under his thin moustache, the contented smile of an honest, hardworking, +successful man. I know him well; I seem to have met him in a hundred +editions in the offices of municipalities and prefectures, behind the +counters of banks and shops. He is generally amiable, but he can lose +his temper, and when he loses it, it is worth your while to help him to +find it. + +Here comes the Heidelberg professor, accompanied by two fair daughters. +He is tall, of commanding presence, and walks with patriarchal gravity +under a green umbrella. A large pocket, embroidered and ingeniously +designed with numerous compartments, is strapped to his waist. He +strokes his long, well-trimmed beard as he admonishes the girls to pay +serious attention to the natural beauty of the scenery. He rummages the +pocket for his field-glasses. "This, dear children, is Mont Blanc. I do +not say that our Schwarzwald is not just as lovely in its way. This +mountain was first climbed by Paccard and Balmat. It stretches from the +Col de Balme to the Col du Bonhomme and the Col de la Seigne. [A book is +now extracted from the fourth division of the pocket.] There are the +following passes: the Col d'Argentiere, the Col...." His eye-glasses +slip downwards on his nose. The girls are not listening. Gretchen is +entirely absorbed in the fascinating appearance of an Italian who has +just passed, and who by unmistakable signs conveyed to her that she is +adorable. His flashing eyes, his jet-black hair, his lithe figure, his +pointed toes, the nimble way in which he managed to press her hand +behind the very back of her father, have stirred her imagination. Hedvig +is shocked. The elder daughter is permeated with respect for her +father's professorial dignity. Every gesture betrays the capable +housekeeper. She seems to be made of squares--good, proper, solid +squares. She tells the smiling Gretchen, whose cheeks suggest +strawberries and cream, that she must never encourage dark Italians by +looking at them. She should look at the ground when such men pass. She +should be more attentive to father. The sound of their footsteps dies, +and the green umbrella is but a dream. Hedvig has filled my window with +visions of a well-ordered German home, of sausages and _Sauerkraut_, of +beer and pickled fruit, of embroideries and coffee-parties. + +Here comes a hatless representative of young Russia. His clothes are +shabby and neglected; he walks with a shuffling, tired movement. But his +face is startling. It seems to light up the path with some kind of +spiritual fervour. His hair is long and golden, his beard suggests an +aureole of virtue, his large blue eyes are penetrating but mild. A +confused series of faces flash through my mind--Abraham, Tolstoy, Jesus +Christ? Yes, it may seem sacrilegious, but the man is like Jesus Christ. +I see now that the likeness is studied, cultivated, impressive. This is +one of the _intelligentsia_ who has lingered for a while in Geneva or +Lausanne _en route_ for the haunts of spiritual revolution. A din of +dear familiar voices now fills the path and seems to shake the tops of +the pines. "I guess you won't try that again. I did Munich in one day, +Dresden in one and a half, Berlin in two, and Europe in twenty." Three +women and a man stop opposite the chalet. The ladies are charmingly +dressed in summer frocks of white and pink and blue, and carry nothing +heavier than a parasol. The man is laden with cloaks, rugs, and bags. +They peer into my window and try to catch a glimpse of the interior. I +hastily draw the curtains and leave one peep-hole for myself. "Quaint +houses these Swiss live in," says one. "It isn't a bad shanty," says the +man. "Let's have a glass of milk," says another. + +"Dew lait," they shout through the window. I callously observe them +through my peep-hole. The man is of a fine American type, sinewy, +resolute, hawk-eyed. The mountain sunshine provides me with Roentgen +rays, and I see Wall Street inside his brow. "Dew lait," they yell. As +there is no answer, they hammer at the door. The door is adamant. They +leave reluctantly. "I think I saw the face of one of those Swiss idiots +through the curtains," says the lady in pink; "of course he would not +understand what we said." + +There is a delightful readiness to jump to conclusions on the part of +visitors. Sometimes they are the reverse of flattering, but they are +always a source of delighted interest to me. I remember one day, years +ago, when I had gone to draw water at the source, which emerges as a +thousand diamonds from the rock and then descends into the hollow trunk +of a tree and becomes tame and inclined to domesticity. The cows had +come for a drink at the same hour, and we had just exchanged a few +polite remarks when I found myself observed by an English clergyman. +Yes, unmistakably English. His face was prim and clean-shaven, his +collar straight and stiff, upon his lips there played a sweet and devout +smile. He lifted up the tail of his coat ceremoniously and, selecting a +clean stone, seated himself upon it. He radiated condescending kindness. + +"Lor a bun," said he. I asked the cows to excuse me for a moment and +turned to him. "Lor a bun," he repeated, this time with a query. I +stared uncomprehendingly. The sweet smile became sweeter. "Lor a bun, ma +pettit fille, eh?" At last I understood. "Oh, yes, the water is +excellent here," I replied, "and freezingly cold if you put your +fingers in it." He departed in unceremonious haste. + +For some years I have watched the procession of nations on my path. +French, German, English, Russian, Austrian, American, Italian--they all +brought me a picture of their tribal characteristics, trivial, thumbnail +sketches, but nevertheless true to life. It may be urged that +holiday-makers do not constitute reliable material for the observation +of national peculiarities. I am not so sure. A man on a holiday +generally takes his goodwill with him, and endeavours, at least, to +restrain his temper and his prejudices. He may fail in the attempt, and +be a peevish thing at play, but the attempt will show him at his best. +From the hotels below, where the crowds of cosmopolis stayed _en +pension_ at reasonable and unreasonable terms, the sound of music and +songs visited me in the evening. The nations were waltzing. +International peace reigned under the auspices of the Swiss hotel +keeper. Forgotten were the ancient feuds of dynasty and religion. Common +humanity was uppermost. + +And now the nations are at war. The concourse of friendly strangers who +used to meet in the hotels is sharply divided into hostile groups. +Travel is suspended or severely restricted. The Frenchman who a short +time ago raised his glass in friendly salute to the German at the +opposite table, who had guided him across the moraine, is now convulsed +at the thought that he could ever forget the essentially brutal and +inhuman character of all Germans. The German wishes he had dropped the +Frenchman into the crevasse. There would then, he argues, have been one +less of these treacherous, mean people, whose love of military conquest +is only checked by impotence. He remembers Napoleon and the fact that +any insignificant-looking chip of the Latin block may one day threaten +the heart of Germany. The easy and good-humoured internationalism of +tourist-life is at an end. + +I do not know to what extent modern facilities for inexpensive travel +have helped to establish friendship and understanding between the +nations. But I do know that a person who claims to be educated, and who +has never travelled abroad, is insufferably boresome. I prefer the +society of a mole. The mole does not lecture me on the incalculable +advantages of remaining in one's dark passages. I do not shut my eyes +to the fact that some people go abroad and come home with their +stupidity unmodified by experience. But they have been made +uncomfortable, and that is something. A series of pricks of discomfort +might dislodge the obstacles to mental circulation. A Swiss hotel may +serve to check the contempt which the Philistines of all nations (there +is a truly international bond between them) feel at the thought of a +foreigner, though the shock of finding oneself amongst such +peculiarities of clothes, or frisure, or table-manners may be almost +unbearable. "Can you tell me," said a charming but agitated old lady +from Bath one day, "of a hotel where there are no foreigners?" "I am +afraid I cannot," I answered. "The hotel you have in mind would be full +of foreigners in Switzerland, and you would but add to their number." + +Even the most cosmopolitan habitues of Nice, or Monte Carlo, or Homburg +feel the mildly stimulating effect of being in the presence of +foreigners. You are interested or disgusted, you are attracted or +repelled; your curiosity is aroused; you guess, you weave romances, you +make conscious use of the rich material for comparison which lies +before you. In Europe, apparently, the nations meet but do not merge. +America achieves the miracle. I remember one evening in New York. I had +addressed a meeting of good Americans and was coming home in the train. +I was tired and unobservant and kept my eyes closed. Suddenly a loud +remark in Danish attracted my attention. I looked up at the row of +humanity in the long carriage. Sitting opposite me, standing at my side, +hanging by the straps, were the nations of the world. The racial types +were there: Slavonic, Latin, Teutonic; the skull dolichocephalic and the +skull brachycephalic rested side by side without any attempt at mutual +evacuation. I could distinguish the faces of Frenchmen, Jews, +Englishmen, Japanese, Germans, Poles, negroes, Italians. They did not +study one another. They were journeying home from the day's work. A +strange homogeneity brooded over the company. America had put her +super-stamp on their brows. They were citizens of an all-human country. + +What, then, is this mysterious power which seems to master the Old +World, whilst it is mastered by the New World? Nationality is clearly a +mundane thing. It is not generally suggested that heaven is mapped out +into national frontiers; the Christian religion and other faiths are +bent on roping in all the nations. The missionaries who are sent out to +Africa and China go with the conviction that there is room in heaven for +the black and the yellow sinner. True, the black and the yellow man will +first have to shed their somewhat irregular appearance and come forth +white and radiant, but the belief in the possibility of such a feat is +proof positive that we regard the nationality of a man as a transient +business. Nationality is local, spirituality universal. Nationality is a +form, a mould, a means; spirituality is the essence, the force, the +object. The problems of nationality are wrapped up in the problems of +personality. A personality is an amalgam of likes and dislikes, of habit +and prejudice, the product of circumstances and a will. There is such a +thing as multiple personality, and there is also multiple nationality. +But the simple measure of nationality is severely natural and elemental. +It is rooted in the need of understanding and being understood. It +begins with love of self (we do love ourselves, in spite of all +assurances to the contrary), family, and tribe. In a world of diversity +and uncertainty it envelops us with a comforting assurance that there +are creatures who feel and think as we do. It endows us with a +group-soul, without which we, like ants and bees, cannot face life. The +sense of nationality is but an enlarged sense of personality. + +It is a realization of unity which comprises many lesser units. Our +household, our village, our country, our constituency, are all +independent unities which we deliberately (though not always +successfully) press into the service of the greater unity. The lesser +unities always run the danger of being superseded by the greater +unities. The conditions of soil and climate in a hamlet produce a crop +of personalities similar in content and range, a type which we may +distinguish by the shape of the nose or the trend of the remarks. Ten +neighbouring little hamlets may have their little ways of distinction +which separate one from the other, and yet one day--to their +dismay--discover that they have greater generalities in common. Once the +discovery is made, prudence and common sense demand co-operation. The +great nations are built up on the discovery. Italy, Germany, and Great +Britain have taken it to heart after endless trials of the smaller +unities. America had one severe trial, and then settled down to +circumvent and undo the curse of Babel. The sense of separateness, once +so precious to Florence, Genoa, and Pisa, could not resist the larger +conception of Italy. + +There is no reason, historical or logical, why this expansion of the +consciousness of unity should not proceed until there is nothing further +to include. The recognition of an all-human brotherhood is followed by +the realization of an all-animal brotherhood in which the essential +likeness of all that breathes and feels is paramount. Personally, I have +never found the slightest difficulty in accepting our near relationship +to the apes. On the contrary, every monkey I meet--and I have specially +cultivated their acquaintance--reminds me sharply of the simian origin +of our dearest traditions. + +The consciousness of unity and the consequent sense of separateness from +some other body or bodies are subject to constant change and +surprisingly erratic in their application. A bare hint to the Welshman, +the Scotsman, the Breton, the Provencal, or the Bavarian that his +national idiosyncrasies do not exist, and you will speedily see a +demonstration of them. And yet, a moment ago, they felt entirely British +or French or German. Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians have each a keen +sense of national separateness (and superiority), but let the tongue of +slander touch their common nature, and Scandinavia rises in indignant +unity. I have attended many International Congresses, and have observed +how easily the party is on the verge of grave national crises. Each +alliance musters a good-humoured tolerance of the deficiencies of +others. But let an opponent of the whole scheme, for which they have +assembled, attack the principle which is sacred to all, and there is an +immediate truce and concerted action against the intruder. Russian and +German troops have found it necessary to suspend their fighting in order +to defend themselves against the attacks of wolves. The hungry pack of +wolves, waiting by the trenches at night, presented a force which called +for united opposition, and the European war had to wait whilst the men +of the opposite armies joined in killing them. When the slaughter of +wolves was happily over, the human battle was resumed. Supposing, +instead of wolves, an airship of super-terrestrial proportions had +brought an army of ten-armed, four-headed, and six-legged creatures, +bent on dealing out death to the occupants of the trenches, what would +have happened? Supposing the inhabitants of a more cruel and vicious +planet than ours (cosmological specialists assure us such exist) +developed powers of warfare before which the exploits of Hannibal or +Attila paled into insignificance, and learnt the art of destroying life +not only in their own world but in others as well? They might come armed +with new atmospheric weapons, trailing clouds of suffocating fumes to +which resistance with guns and bombs would be utterly ineffectual. The +horror of the unknown danger would paralyse the war, batteries would be +deserted and the trenches would quickly be internationalized. The sense +of our common humanity, outraged at the sight and the smell of the +monsters, would assert itself. Generals and statesmen of the belligerent +peoples--if any were left to direct the defensive--would hold +subterranean meetings, and, forgetting the cause for which they sent men +to die nobly but a few days ago, would discuss how they could save the +united remnants of humanity by strategy and simulation. + +The sense of unity is, after all, dependent on innumerable conditions +and circumstances over which we have little control. There is the unity +of tradition and education, of Eton and Harrow, of Oxford and Cambridge. +It moulds opinion and imposes certain restrictions of conduct and +prejudices in outlook. Rivalry is an indispensable and normal adjunct of +such unity. Races and the honour and glory of one's school and team can +stir the group-soul to incredible heights of enthusiasm and effort. +There is the instinctive unity of seafarers. Who has not, when crossing +the ocean, felt that he was part of a small world independent and +isolated from others, but bound together by special ties of adventure? +An encounter with an iceberg will bring the common responsibilities and +dangers to the notice of the most inveterate individualist, but even +while the ship moves uneventfully forward, he, perforce, shares the +feeling of oneness. There is the humorous unity which will seize the +opposing parties in a court of law and make them join in laughter at +some feeble judicial joke just to experience the relief of forgetting +that they are there to be contentious. + +The advocates of the theory that nations and nationalities are eternally +distinct and separate can see no analogy of unity in the simple examples +of everyday life. They tell us conclusively that England is England and +France is France, and our humble retort that we know as much and +something besides is silenced by the further information that each +nation has a soul that will tolerate no interference from other souls. +They forget, our apostles of the creed of separateness, that the States +of to-day are built up on a vast mixture of races and nationalities. +They forget, also, that nationality is not a fixed and immovable +quantity. Like personality, it is alive and changing, susceptible to +influence and experience, liable to psychic contagion from the thoughts +and emotions of others. There is no pure nationality. Hybrids are +regarded as inferior creatures, as biological outlaws. The truth is, we +are all hybrids. Our bluest blood has all the shades of common colour in +it when examined ethnically. Great Britain--and Ireland--contains a +mixture of Romans, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes, Normans, and Celts. +To-day, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish are mixtures within mixtures. And what +is the British Empire? A conglomeration of races and languages, a +pan-national product of conquest and colonization, in which the forces +of racial modification are always at work obliterating old divisions and +creating new claims to national recognition. + +The Russian Empire, sown by Vikings, Slavs, and Mongols, has a rich +racial flora, including Germans, Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Letts, +Roumanians, Afghans, Tartars, Finns, and scores of others. The Great +Russians, the White Russians, and the Little Russians may each claim to +have sprung from the purest Russian stock, but no one has as yet been +able to settle satisfactorily the meaning of that claim. The Russians +have successively been proved to be of Mongol, Slav, Teutonic, Aryan, +Tartar, Celto-Slav, and Slav-Norman origin. Italy, believed to be the +home of pure Latin blood, has sheltered and mingled a great number of +races, such as Egyptians, Greeks, Spaniards, Slavs, Germans, Jews, and +Normans. The Republics of Central and South America are to a large +extent peopled by half-breeds. Here the commingling is flagrant and +offensive to the partisan of the superiority of the white race. Spain +in Mexico and Portugal in Brazil have produced a wild-garden crop which +is the despair of the custodian of racial law and order. The search for +national purity brings many unexpected discoveries and destroys various +theories. It reveals the fact that America has no monopoly of racial +amalgamation. + +France and Germany appear to us as opposites and irreconcilables. Yet, +if you pursue Germany to the hour of her birth you will find that her +mother was France. Examine France physiologically and you will find that +her muscles and arteries have a German consistency. A thorough +investigation of the origins of Germany may prove that she is more +Gaulish than Gaul. The Germanic invasions of France are matters of +elementary history. Originally a mixture of Ligurians, Celts, +Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, she is only Latin in part. Caesar +conquered Gaul, but the Roman mixture has not obliterated previous or +subsequent additions. The Latin blood of France was thoroughly diluted +by Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Vandals, Normans, and other peoples +of Germanic stamp. When Gaul was partitioned into the Burgundian +kingdom, Austrasia, and Neustria, there were already present the +selective processes which, centuries later, shaped the French and the +German souls. Neustria clung to Roman culture, whilst Austrasia nurtured +the seeds of the specific _Kultur_ which attained its full bloom in the +twentieth century. Through rivalry and war the two types persisted. +Charlemagne crushed the rebellious Saxon spirit and conquered Bavaria. +He unified the divergent tendencies, but only for a time. In 843 his +empire was partitioned. France grew out of the western portion, Germany +out of the eastern. Lotharingia or Lorraine was established as a middle +kingdom. Did kind Fates design it as a guarantee of peace and stability? + +The Germans are apt to claim for themselves a pure and Valhallic origin, +an exceptionally unmixed descent of the highest attributes. The +primogenial origin may be hidden in obscurity, but the German people +have absorbed Gauls, Serbs, Poles, Wends, and a medley of Slav and +Celtic races which confound all claims to racial purity. Slavs settled +in Teutonic countries and Teutons settled in Slavonic countries. The +German colonists who invaded Russia at the invitation of Catherine II +were imported to strengthen Russia, just as the Great Elector helped +thousands of Huguenots fleeing from France to settle in Brandenburg, and +gave them the rights of citizenship for the sake of the vitality which +they would impart to his depopulated country. + +The belief in the unalloyed purity of races and the consequent battles +for national exclusiveness seem to be founded on one of those gigantic +illusions which hold humanity captive for centuries. Here, as elsewhere, +knowledge will spell freedom. When we realize that here and now nations +are in course of transformation, that the divisions of the past are not +the divisions of to-day, and that we, despite conservatism and +resistance, are made to serve as ingredients in some great mixture of +to-morrow, momentous questions arise. Are nations made by war and +conquest? Are peoples amalgamated by oppressive legislation? Do +political alliances between States create international unities? + +Such alliances have not in the past caused any organic union. The +nations have met like partners at a ball and danced to the tune of the +dynastic or religious quarrel which happened to be paramount at the +time. The grouping of nations in alliances has simply been a means of +more effective prosecution of military campaigns, a temporary +convenience to be discarded when no longer needed. If the example of the +past is to be followed, then Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and +America, though holding hands now, will separate when the war is over, +and may find it necessary to use the same hands for chastizing each +other. Alliances have been political games and devices, useful or +useless according to the shrewdness of their instigators, but of no +value in promoting love between nations. Old-time enemies become +friends, and old-time friends become enemies at the command of the +political drill-sergeant. England was the hereditary enemy of France. +Prussia was the ally of England. In the war of the Austrian succession, +France in alliance with Prussia fought England and Austria. During the +Seven Years War Prussia, allied to England, fought Austria allied to +France. England, allied to France and Turkey, fought Russia in the +Crimea. Turn the kaleidoscope of history and you see the English driven +out of Normandy, Napoleon defiling Moscow, the Russians attacking +Montmartre. Any schoolboy, can trace the changing partners in the grand +alliances of the past, or refuse to commit them to memory on account of +the bewildering fluctuations in international friendship. + +A fiery common hate, though acting as a powerful cement for a time, is +no guarantee of durability. Napoleon and the French were hated by the +nations, as Wilhelm and the Germans are hated to-day. Rapacious designs +for hegemony have always brought about a corresponding amount of +defensive unity on the part of those whose independence was threatened. +Whether it is Spain or France or Germany that dreams of world-supremacy, +the result is international combination. Richelieu and Bismarck rouse +the same resentment. A great hatred cannot by itself create a lasting +unity, for hatred is apt to grow out of bonds, and, having settled its +legitimate prey outside the circle, generally ends by turning on its +neighbours within it. + +Who can deny that nations have been made by conquest? Heroic +self-defence, anger, bitter opposition to the violation of liberty, are +of little avail if the psychological factors are favourable to +amalgamation. A few decades, a few centuries, and there is fusion +between oppressor and oppressed. Hence the loyalty of conquered nations +to their foreign masters, at times, when rivals vainly hope for trouble. +Hence the indisputable fact that many a nation which but a short time +ago fought valiantly for liberty now manifests not only passive +resignation, but positive contentment. If, on the other hand, the +psychological factors do not favour amalgamation, the legacy of +resentment and opposition is handed on from generation to generation and +the injury is never forgiven. Cases of contented acceptance are quoted +as evidence of the ultimate blessings of war by the adherents of the +theory that efficient military measures constitute right. To me they are +rather evidence of the strength and endurance of the pacifying forces in +human life, and of the sovereignty of the greater unities which draw +nations together. If, in spite of the injuries and devastations of war, +it is possible for men to forgive and to labour for the same social +ends, that is surely proof that the peoples erect no barrier to +brotherhood. The truth is, war sometimes achieves that which pacific +settlement and free intercourse always achieve. + +History has a cavalier way of recording the benefits of conquest. The +feelings of the great conquered receive scant consideration. It is +enough that after the passage of some centuries we contemplate the +matter and declare the conquest to have been beneficial. Was not France +invigorated by the wild Northmen who overran her territories and settled +wherever they found settlement advantageous? The Normans, originally +pirates and plunderers, intermingled with the gentler inhabitants of +France. When they turned their eyes to England they were already +guardians of civilization. And we blandly record the Norman conquest of +England as an unqualified benefit, as an impetus to social amenity, art, +learning, architecture, and religion. Protests are useless. The earth +abounds in instances of the spread of knowledge, inventions, culture, +through war and subjugation. The "rude" peoples who cried out at the +outrage, and who fain would have kept their rudeness, receive no +sympathy from posterity. + +This, I repeat, is no argument for the perpetuation of the old +ways of aggression. We have reached a new consciousness and a new +responsibility. We see better ways of spreading the fruits of +civilization. In the past ambition and brute force, hatred and +suspicion, fear and deceit, have had full play. In spite of barbaric +warfare and Machiavellian politics the human desire for unity and +co-operation has not been uprooted. + +The principle of nationality is emerging from the tortuous confusion of +the ages. We see that it follows no arbitrary rules of state or empire. +It is a law unto itself: the law of mental attraction and community. The +centres of passionate nationhood--Poland, Finland, Ireland--withstand +all attempts at suppression. You cannot break a strong will to national +independence by sledge-hammer blows. In all the wars of the past nations +have been treated with contemptuous indifference to the wishes of the +people. They were there to be seized and used, invaded and evacuated +at a price, to be bought and sold for some empirical or commercial +consideration. In the treaties of peace, princes and statesmen tossed +countries and populations to each other as if they had been balls in a +game of chance. + +A new conception of human dignity and of the inviolability of natural +rights now demands a revaluation of all the motives and objects for +which governments send subjects to battle. Democracy is finding her +international unity. A great many wars of the past are recognized as +having been, not only unnecessary, but positively foolish. The force of +an idea is threatening to dispel the force of arms. The idea which rises +dominant out of the European war is the conviction that nations have a +right to choose their own allegiance or independence; that there must be +freedom instead of compulsion; that real nationality is a psychological +state, a tribute of sympathy, a voluntary service to which the mind is +drawn by affection. To some who lightly praised the idea, treating it as +an admirable prop to war, the consequences and application will bring +dismay. For here you have the pivot of a social revolution such as the +world has never yet seen. It cannot only remain a question of Belgium, +or Serbia, or Alsace-Lorraine. It will inevitably be retrospective and +prospective. It cannot be limited to the possessions of Germany or +Austria or Turkey. It will not pass over India, South Africa, and Egypt. +All empires have been extended by conquest of unwilling nationalities. +Bitter wars have been fought in Europe for colonial supremacy in other +continents. The unwilling tribes of Africa, Asia, and America who have +been suppressed or exterminated to make room for the expanding nations +of Europe knew little of the liberty of choice which has now become the +beacon of militant morality. The principle--if triumphant--will be +destructive of empire based on military force. It will be destructive of +war, for war is national compulsion in its most logical and +uncompromising form. If there is nothing and nobody to conquer, if you +may not use armies to widen your national frontiers, or to procure +valuable land for economical exploitation, the incentive to war will be +removed. The principle will be constructive of a commonwealth of +nations, and empires which have achieved a spiritual unity will survive +the change of form. + +Nationality may be merely instinctive. It is characterized by the +my-country-right-or-wrong attitude, and knows not the difference between +Beelzebub and Michael. It is primitive and unreasoning. Nationality may +be compulsory--a sore grievance and a bitter reproach to existence. It +may be a matter of choice, free and deliberate, a source of joy and +social energy. Such nationality--whether inborn or acquired--is the best +and safest asset which a State can possess. It is generally supposed +that the naturalized subject must be disloyal in a case of conflict +between his country of adoption and his country of birth. Such a view +assumes that all sense of nationality is of the primitive and +unreasoning kind. It precludes all the psychological factors of +attraction, education, friendship, adoption, amalgamation. It is +ignorant of the fact that some of the bitterest enemies of Germany are +Germans, who have left Germany because they could stand her no longer. +These men have a much keener knowledge of her weak spots than the +visitors who give romantic accounts in newspapers of her internal state. +The whole process of naturalization may be rendered unnecessary and +undesirable by future developments in international co-operation. As +things are, it is a formal and legal confirmation of an allegiance which +must exist before the certificate of citizenship is sought. Once given, +the certificate should be honoured and the oath respected. To treat it +as a scrap of paper is unworthy of a State which upholds constitutional +rights. There are doubtless scoundrels amongst naturalized people. It +would be strange if there were not. But to proclaim that a naturalized +subject cannot love the country of his choice as much as the country of +his birth is as rational as the statement that a man cannot love his +wife as much as he loves his mother. Now I have touched on a delicate +point. He may love his wife, but he must repudiate his mother, curse +her, abuse her, disown her. In time of war some do, and some do not. I +am not sure that the deepest loyalty is accompanied by the loudest +curses. + +There is a class of people--I have met them in every country--who are +devotees of the simple creed that you should stay at home and not +interfere in the affairs of others. Travel you may, with a Baedeker or a +Cook's guide, and stay you may in hotels provided for the purpose, but +you must do it in a proper way and at proper times, and preserve a +strict regard for your national prerogatives. But you should not go and +live in countries which are not your own. To such people there is +something almost indecent in the thought that any one should +deliberately wish to shed his own nationality and clothe himself in +another. They form the unintelligent background against which the wild +and lurid nationalists of every tribe disport themselves in frenzied +movements of hate and antagonism. An irate old colonel (very gouty) said +to me the other day: "A man who forgets his duties to his own country +and settles in another is a damnable cur. So much for these dirty +foreigners who overrun England." + +I ventured to remind him that the English have settled in a good many +places: in America, in Australia, in spots fair and foul, friendly and +unfriendly; that they have brought afternoon tea and sport and Anglican +services to the pleasure resorts of Europe and the deserts of Africa. +Meeting with no response, I embarked on a short account of the past +travels and achievements of the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the French in +the art of settlement in foreign lands. I ended up by prophesying that +the aeroplane of the future will transport us swiftly from continent to +continent and make mincemeat of the last remnants of our national +exclusiveness. He was not in the least perturbed. "That is all rubbish," +he said; "people ought to stick to their own country." + +I am afraid neither he nor anybody else can check the wanderings of +individuals and peoples which have gone on ever since man discovered +that he has two legs with which he can move about. And naturalization, +after all, is an easy way of acquiring new and possibly useful citizens. +The subjects come willingly, whilst the millions who are made subjects +by war and subjugation are sometimes exceedingly troublesome. After all, +the aim of all the great kingdoms has been to increase and strengthen +the population, and differences of nationality have been treated as but +trifling obstacles in the way. If the principle of free nationality +which is now stirring the world and inspiring a war of liberation is to +triumph, then the liberty won must include the individuals who prefer a +chosen to a compulsory political allegiance. + +Sometimes the forces of attraction and repulsion create strong ties of +sympathy or lead to acts of repudiation which cross frontiers +irrespectively of the indications on the barometer of foreign politics. +A man may find his spiritual home in the most unexpected place. He may +irresistibly be drawn by the currents of philosophy and art to a foreign +country. The customs in his own may drive him to bitter denunciation. +No one has said harder things of Germany than Nietzsche. Schopenhauer +wished it to be known that he despised the German nation on account of +its infinite stupidity, and that he blushed to belong to it. Heine fled +from Germany in intellectual despair. "If I were a German," he wrote, +"and I am no German...." His heart was captured by the French. Goethe +and Frederick the Great were both profoundly influenced by the French +spirit. Voltaire was most useful at the Prussian Court, for he corrected +the voluminous literary and political output which his Prussian majesty +penned--in French. But there was something more than mere utility in the +tie between the philosopher and the monarch. Frederick was not only +trying to handle heavy German artillery with light French esprit; his +mind craved for the spices of Gallic wit, his thought was ever striving +to clothe itself in the form of France. Another "great" German, +Catherine II of Russia, also moved within the orbit of the French +philosophers. + +Admiration of Germany and German ways has found the strongest expression +in foreigners, and the megalomania from which her sons suffer to-day +may be traced to such outbursts of adulation. Carlyle, the most +representative of pro-German men of letters in the Victorian era, wrote +in 1870: + + Alone of nations, Prussia seems still to understand something + of the art of governing, and of fighting enemies to said art. + Germany from of old, has been the peaceablest, most pious, and in + the end most valiant and terriblest of nations. Germany ought to + be the President of Europe, and will again, it seems, be tried + with that office for another five centuries or so.... This is her + _first_ lesson poor France is getting. It is probable she will + require many such. + +This is blasphemy indeed at the present time. Charles Kingsley was no +less emphatic in his admiration of Germany. Writing on the +Franco-Prussian War to Professor Max Mueller, he said: + + Accept my loving congratulations, my dear Max, to you and your + people. The day which dear Bunsen used to pray, with tears in his + eyes, might not come till the German people were ready, has come, + and the German people are ready. Verily God is just and rules + too; whatever the Press may think to the contrary. My only fear + is lest the Germans should think of Paris, which cannot concern + them, and turn their eyes away from that which does concern + them, the retaking of Alsace (which is their own), and leaving + the Frenchman no foot of the Rhine-bank. To make the Rhine a word + not to be mentioned by the French henceforth ought to be the one + object of wise Germans, and that alone.... I am full of delight + and hope for Germany. + +And to Sir Charles Bunbury: + + I confess to you that were I a German I should feel it my duty to + my country to send my last son, my last shilling, and after all + my own self, to the war, to get that done which must be done, + done so that it will never need doing again. I trust that I + should be able to put vengeance out of my heart, to forget all + that Germany has suffered for two hundred years past from that + vain, greedy, restless nation, all even which she suffered, women + as well as men, in the late French war. + +The attraction of Germany is not only paramount in literature, in Walter +Scott and Mill and Matthew Arnold; the superiority of German blood and +constitution was an article of faith of the Victorians. The sins of +Prussia were forgiven with amazing alacrity. The base attacks on Austria +and Denmark evoked no moral indignation. German influence on English +life was not only welcomed; historians went so far as to proclaim the +identity of England and Germany. Thus Freeman, in a lecture in 1872, +stated that "what is Teutonic in us is not merely one element among +others, but that it is the very life and essence of our national +being...." Houston Chamberlain, in his reverent unravelling of the +greatness of the Germanic peoples, is merely carrying on the tradition +of the Victorian age. In the application of theories he is a disciple of +Gobineau, a Frenchman, who after a profound study of the inequality of +the human race became convinced of the superiority and high destiny of +Germany. Gobineau and Chamberlain have told the Germans that they are +mighty and unconquerable, and the Germans have listened with undisguised +pleasure. + +Gobineau may be set aside as a professor of a fixed idea. There are +other Frenchmen who have paid glowing tribute to Germany. Taine excelled +in praise of her intellectual vigour and productivity. Victor Hugo +expressed his love and admiration for her people, and confessed to an +almost filial feeling for the noble and holy fatherland of thinkers. If +he had not been French he would have liked to have been German. Ernest +Renan studied Germany, and found her like a temple--so pure, so moral, +so touching in her beauty. This reminds us of the many who during the +present war, though ostensibly enemies of Germany, spend half their time +in proclaiming her perfection and the necessity for immediate imitation +of all her ways. Madame de Stael and Michelet expressed high regard for +German character and institutions. There are degrees and qualities of +attraction and absorption, varying from the amorous surrender with which +Lafcadio Hearn took on Japanese form to the bootlicking flattery which +Sven Hedin heaps on the Germans. (It is quite futile to seek for an +explanation of Hedin's conduct in his Jewish-Prussian descent. He would +lackey anywhere. Strindberg dealt faithfully with Hedin's pretensions. +Strindberg, alas! is dead, but his exposure of Hedin has been strangely +justified.) + +Heine is an example of the curious and insistent fascination with which +the mind may be drawn to one nationality whilst it is repelled by +another. His judgment on England is painful in the extreme: + +"It is eight years since I went to London," he writes in the Memoirs, +"to make the acquaintance of the language and the people. The devil +take the people and their language! They take a dozen words of one +syllable into their mouth, chew them, gnaw them, spit them out again, +and they call that talking. Fortunately they are by nature rather +silent, and although they look at us with gaping mouths, yet they spare +us long conversations." + +Can anything be more sweeping? Can anything be more untrue? "Fortunately +they are by nature rather silent"--imagine the reversed verdict had +Heine attended a general election campaign! The unattractiveness of +England is softened by the women. "If I can leave England alive, it will +not be the fault of the women; they do their best." This is praise +indeed, when placed side by side with his dismissal of the women of +Hamburg. They are plump, we are told, "but the little god Cupid is to +blame, who often sets the sharpest of love's darts to his bow, but from +naughtiness or clumsiness shoots too low, and hits the women of Hamburg +not in the heart but in the stomach." + +France was as delightful as England was doleful: + +"My poor sensitive soul," he cries, "that often recoiled in shyness from +German coarseness, opened out to the flattering sounds of French +urbanity. God gave us our tongues so that we might say pleasant things +to our fellow-men.... Sorrows are strangely softened. In the air of +Paris wounds are healed quicker than anywhere else; there is something +so noble, so gentle, so sweet in the air as in the people themselves." + +I suppose the only analogy to such superlative contentment is provided +by the phenomenon known as falling in love. Happily we do not all choose +the same object of affection. England has a curious way of inspiring +either great and lasting love or irritation and positive dislike. There +seems to be little or no indifference. I believe love predominates. + +From exiled kings to humble refugees, from peripatetic philosophers to +indolent aborigines, the testimony of her charm can be gathered. I speak +as a victim. I love England with a fervour born of admiration (without +admiration no one ever falls in love). I love her ways and her mind, I +love her chilly dampness and her hot, glowing fires (attempts to analyse +and classify love are always silly). In her thinkers and workers, in her +schemes and efforts for social improvement, in her freedom of thought +and speech I found my mental _milieu_. + +To me England is inexpressibly dear, not because a whole conspiracy of +influences--educational, conventional, patriotic--were at work +persuading me that she is worthy of affection. I myself discovered her +lovableness. Your Chauvinist is always a mere repeater. He is but a +member of the Bandar-Log, shouting greatness of which he knows nothing. +True love does not need the trumpets of Jingoism. I have no room for +lies about England: the truth is sufficient for me. Though I love +England, I have affection to spare for other countries. I feel at home +in France, in Sweden, in America, in Switzerland. Your Chauvinist will +excuse the former affections on account of "blood." Swedish-French by +ties of ancestry, such a sense of familiarity is natural when set +against my preternatural love of England. + +Chauvinism flourishes exceedingly on the soil of national conceit. That +conceit is prodigious and universal. The Germans are past-masters in the +art of self-glorification, and their pan-German literature is certainly +not only bold but ingenious in this respect. Is any one great outside +Germany? Very well, let us trace his German origin. It may be remote, it +may be hidden by centuries of illusory nationality, but it must be +there. France has her apostles of superiority. Their style is more +flexible, their pretensions less clumsy, but they neglect no opportunity +of seducing us into a belief that France, and France only, is mistress +of the human mind. Russia has her fervid declaimers of holy excellence +and the superior quality of the Slav character. It does not matter +whether the country is great or small, whether it be Montenegro or +Cambodia, it always contains souls who feel constrained to give the +world a demonstration of their overflowing superiority. Pan-Germanism, +pan-Slavism, pan-Magyarism, pan-Anglosaxism, pan-Americanism grow out of +such conceit, systematized by professors and sanctified by bishops. + +The conceit of nationality often fosters great deeds, and generally +finds expression that is more aggressive than intelligent. It takes hold +of the most unlikely subjects. It is a potent destroyer of balanced +judgment, and will pitilessly make the most solemn men ridiculous. The +outbursts of Emerson when under its influence are truly amazing. "If a +temperate wise man should look over our American society," he said in a +lecture, "I think the first danger which would excite his alarm would be +the European influences on this country.... See the secondariness and +aping of foreign and English life that runs through this country, in +building, in dress, in eating, in books." + +This rejection savours of the contempt with which some young men turn +their backs on the fathers who fashioned them. "Let the passion for +America," he cried, "cast out the passion for Europe. Here let there be +what the earth waits for--exalted manhood." He gives a picture of the +finished man, the gentleman who will be born in America. He defines the +superiority of such a man to the Englishman: + + Freer swing his arms; farther pierce his eyes, more forward and + forthright his whole build and rig than the Englishman's, who, + we see, is much imprisoned in his backbone. + +It is difficult to surmise the exact meaning of being imprisoned in +one's backbone. The possession of plenty of backbone is generally held +to be a decided advantage. Emerson may have had special and +transcendental prejudices against strongly fashioned vertebrae. + +The freaks of nationalism are as remarkable as the freaks of +internationalism. There is a constant interplay between the two, and the +ascendancy of the one or the other often seems strangely capricious. +Nationalism is weak where it should be strong, and rigid where common +sense would make it fluid. The painful position of most royal families +in time of war is an example of the readiness with which nations submit +to foreign rulership and influence. Thrones, one would think, should +represent the purely national spirit in its more intimate and sacred +aspect. Yet the abundance of crowned rulers, past and present, attached +by solemn selection or marriage, who are not by blood and tradition of +the people, shows the fallacy of this supposition. Napoleon was an +Italian who learnt French with some difficulty, and who was at first +hostile to the French and somewhat contemptuous of their ways. Marechal +Bernadotte--French to his finger-tips--became King of Sweden. Pierre +Loti, interviewing the charming and beloved Queen of the Belgians during +the present war, remembers that the martyred lady before him is a +Bavarian princess. The delicate and painful subject is mentioned. "It is +at an end," says the Queen; "between _them_ and me has fallen a curtain +of iron which will never again be lifted." + +Prominent statesmen, who, one would also think, should be bone of the +bone of the nations for which they speak, have often been of alien birth +or of mixed racial composition. Bismarck was of Slav origin; +Beaconsfield was a Jew. The most picturesque example of such +irregularities of the national consciousness is perhaps the presence of +General Smuts in the War Cabinet. Once the alert and brave enemy in arms +against this country, he is now its trusted guide, philosopher, and +friend. + +Writers whom posterity classes as typical representatives of the +national genius have often been of mixed racial strain, as were +Tennyson, Browning, Ibsen, Kant, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Longfellow, and +Whitman. The "bastards" of internationalism, so offensive to some +nationalist fire-eaters, are not produced by the simple and natural +processes by which races are mixed. They are self-created, their minds +are set on gathering the varied fruit of all the nations. Genealogically +they may be as uninteresting as the snail in the cabbage-patch, +spiritually they are provocative and arresting. Romain Rolland and +George Brandes challenge and outrage the champions of nationalism by the +very texture of their minds. Joseph Conrad, a Pole, stands side by side +with Thomas Hardy in his mastership of contemporary English fiction. +Conrad in his consummate interpretation of sea-life is, if anything, +more English than Hardy. + +The future of internationalism is possibly fraught with greater wonders +than has been the past. The path will certainly not be laid out with the +smoothness which some enthusiasts imagine. The idea and the hope are old +as the hills. Cicero proclaimed a universal society of the human race. +Seneca declared the world to be his country. Epictetus and Marcus +Aurelius declared themselves citizens of the world. St. Paul explained +that there is neither Jew nor Greek. John Wesley looked upon the world +as his parish. "The world is my country, mankind are my brothers," said +Thomas Paine. "The whole world being only one city," said Goldsmith, "I +do not care in which of the streets I happen to reside." + +Such complete impartiality is a little too detached for the make-up of +present humanity. It may suit an etherialized and mobile race of the +future. We are dependent on conditions of space and surroundings, we are +the creatures of association and love. The master-problem in +internationalism is the elimination of the forces of prejudice and +ignorance that foster hostility, and the preservation of the precious +characteristics which are the riches of the Soul of the World. + + + + +RELIGION IN TRANSITION + + +The general destructiveness of war is patent to everybody. The +destruction of life, of property, of trade, strikes the most superficial +observer as inevitable consequences of a state of war. At the outbreak +of hostilities most of us foresaw that the uprooting would not stop +short at the sacrifices of livelihood and occupation which were demanded +by military necessities. We expected a sweeping revision of our habits, +our prejudices, our conventions. We have got infinitely more than we +expected. Not only have we made acquaintance with the State--the State +as a relentless master of human fate and service; not only have we +learnt that individualism--philosophic or commercial--is borne like a +bubble on the waters of national tribulation and counts for nothing in +the mass of collective effort demanded from us. Industry, commerce, art, +learning, science, energy, enthusiasm, every gift and power within the +range of human capacity, is requisitioned for the efficient pursuit of +war. Liberty of action, of speech, ancient rights which were won by +centuries of struggle, are taken away because we are more useful and +less troublesome without them. We are made parts of the machinery of +State, and we have to be drilled and welded into the proper shape. + +The changes imposed on us from without are thorough and have been +surprisingly many, but the changes taking place within our own souls are +deeper and likely to surprise us more in the end. Everything has been +found untenable. Theories and systems are shaken by the great upheaval. +Civilization has become a question instead of a postulate. All human +thought is undergoing a process of retrospection, drawn by a desire to +find a new and stable beginning. Take down Spencer and Comte or Lecky +and Kidd from your bookshelf and try to settle down to a contented +contemplation of the sociological tenets of the past. You will fail, for +you will feel that this is a new world with burning problems and +compelling facts which cannot be covered by the old systems. Take down +the old books of religious comfort--Thomas a Kempis, or Bunyan, or St. +Augustine, and you feel their remoteness from the new agonies of soul. +But it is not only the old books of piety which fail to satisfy the +hunger of to-day; the mass of devotional writings, especially produced +to meet the needs of the war, are painfully inadequate. Rightly or +wrongly, there is a sense of the inadequacy of the thought of the past +to meet the need of the present. It invades every recess of the mind, it +interposes itself in science as well as in religion; it leaves us no +peace. + +There can be no doubt about it: we are blighted by the great +destructiveness. All attempts to keep the war from our thoughts are +destined to fail. Without being struck in an air-raid or torpedoed on +the high seas, there is a sufficiency of destructive force in the daily +events and in our accommodation to live on for them or in spite of them. + +Hence the universal demand for reconstruction. It is a blessed word: we +cling to it, we live by it. So many buildings have tumbled about our +ears, so many foundations were nothing but running sand; a whole galaxy +of truths turned out to be lies. Now we must prepare that which is solid +and indestructible. Perhaps some great and wise spirit brooding over our +world, learned with the experience of aeons, of human attempts and +mistakes, smiles at the deadly earnestness of the intention to +reconstruct. I do not care. We have reached a pass when all life and all +hope are centred in this faith: the faith that we can make anew and good +and beautiful the distorted web of human existence. + +The war has not taught us what civilization is. But it has taught us +what it is not. We know now that it is not mechanical ingenuity or +clever inventions or commercialism carried to its utmost perfection. +Civilization is not railways or telephones or vast cities or material +prosperity. A satisfactory definition of civilization is well-nigh +impossible. The past has born a bewildering number of different types, +and it is a matter of personal taste where we place the line of +demarcation between barbarism and culture. Our Christian civilization is +passing through catastrophic changes, and it is again a matter of +opinion whether it is in its death-throes or in the pangs of a new +birth. But we feel vaguely, yet insistently, that civilization is a +state of the soul; it is the gentle life towards which we aspire. It is +based on the gradual substitution of moral and spiritual forces for +simple brute force. What is the exact relation of religion to +civilization? The answer has been as variable as the purpose of the +questioners. To some religion is civilization, to others it is merely a +temporary weakness of the human mind, to which it will always be prone +from fear of the unknown and the wish to live for ever. Comparative +studies of the great religions of the world, their past and present +forms, do not support the view that civilization is identical with +religion. Religions have on many occasions ranged themselves on the side +of brute force to the suppression of gentleness and sympathetic +tolerance. It is really all a question of the meaning which we attach to +the word "religion." Do we mean the Church, set forms of worship and +ceremonial, or do we mean the human craving for spiritual truth with the +consequent strife to reach certainty, and, in certainty, peace of soul? +There is a gulf between the two conceptions of religion. + +Religion is questioned as never heretofore. The great destructiveness is +passing over the old beliefs. In the clamour for reconstruction we must +clearly distinguish between the wider religious life and mere +denominationalism. + +The vast host of rationalists are busy proclaiming the downfall of +religion. The war serves them as material for demonstration. The failure +of Christianity to avert bloodshed, and the horrors under which +Christendom is now submerged, are naturally used as a proof that the +ethic of Christianity is lamentably feeble. The difference between +theoretical Christianity and the social practices which the Church +condones is held to be damning evidence of hypocrisy and falsehood. The +quarrels between sects and divisions, the petty subjects which rouse the +ire of the orthodox mind, the persistent quibbling over insignificant +details of faith and service, have strained rationalistic patience to +the breaking-point. The Church has been found fiddling whilst Rome +burns. + +Our little rationalists are right, perfectly right, when they point to +the shortcomings of the Churches. But they confuse the form with the +substance, the frailties of human nature with the irrepressible desire +to find God. They have their small idols and their conventional forms of +worship, which, if put to the great social test, would prove as +ineffective in building the City of Light as the churchgoing of the +past. Their prime deity is Science. We are on the point of developing +intelligence, they tell us; we at last see through the silly theories +about God and the Universe, which deluded the childish and the ignorant +of past ages. Assisted by the sound of guns and the sight of general +misery, we must at last realize that there is no God to interfere in the +troubles of man, and that Churches and creeds are hopeless failures. +Science, we are assured, will take the place of religion. + +I am a patient and sympathetic student of the propagandist literature of +rationalism. I have the greatest admiration for the moral and social +idealism which is advocated. I agree that the atheological moral idea is +superior to the mere performance of religious ceremonial. But I cannot +admire the reasoning or the intelligence of those who use a smattering +of science as evidence of the decay of religion. There is something +almost comical in the solemnity with which they contrast the +commonplaces of scientific observation with the vast mysteries of +religion, to the detriment of the latter. "These marvellous researches +of the human eye," writes Sir Harry Johnston in a collection of articles +entitled _A Generation of Religious Progress_, presumably intended to +portray our rationalistic progress, "so far, though they have sounded +the depths of the Universe, have found no God." He is speaking of +astronomical investigation, and he has just emphasized the reliability +of our five senses. + +One wonders whether he is simply echoing the well-known phrase of +Laplace, or whether he seriously believes that the non-existence of God +is proved by the inability of the human eye to see Him! Nothing could be +more unscientific--one hates using that hackneyed expression, but there +is no other--than this confidence in the reliability of the senses. It +reminds one of the young man who said he could not believe in God +because he had not seen Him. He could only believe in things which he +could see. "Do you believe you have a brain?" some one asked. The young +man did. "And have you seen it?" was the next question. + +I shall be told that though the young man could not--fortunately--see +his own brain, others might by opening his skull, and that no dissection +of brains or examination of stars has ever shown us God. This is exactly +the point where our easygoing rationalist misses the mark. Brains and +stars do show God to those who have developed the faculties wherewith +to perceive Him. + +The senses are, after all, very fallible and very variable. A little +opium, a little alcohol, a blow on the head, or some great emotion will +modify their judgment to an incredible degree. Sir Harry Johnston may +not be very representative as an exponent of scientific conclusions +about the existence of God, but he is interesting and typical of much of +the rough-and-ready opposition to formulated religion. I quote the +upshot of his admiration for the feats of the human eye: + + Religion, as the conception of a heavenly being, or heavenly + beings, hovering about the earth and concerning themselves + greatly with the affairs of man, has been abolished for all + thoughtful and educated people by the discoveries of science. + Perhaps, however, I should not say "abolished" as being too + final; I should prefer to say that such theories have been put + entirely in the background as unimportant Compared with the awful + problems which affect the welfare and progress of humanity on + this planet. + +The honesty of the conviction is not marred by the fact that it is +entirely mistaken. "God is infinitely more remote now (in 1916) from the +thoughts of the educated few than he was prior to 1859," writes Sir +Harry. This statement is not true. Speculation about God, the meaning +of life, the social import of Christianity, was never more rife amongst +educated people. Here I must check myself: what does "educated" mean? To +be able to read and write, and say "Hear, hear" at public meetings? To +have a pretty idea of the positions of Huxley and Haeckel by which to +confound the poor old Bible? If by education we mean the exposition of +some special branch of the physical sciences, the statement may be true. +If we mean men and women with a general knowledge of life and letters, +with a social consciousness and humanitarian sympathies, it is +ridiculously wide of the truth. There is everywhere a hunger for a +satisfying explanation of life. There are restlessness and impatience +with dogma and creed, there is a growing indifference to the old +sectarian exclusiveness, but there is above all a new interest in God. +We need not go to Mr. Bernard Shaw or Mr. Wells for testimony to this +interest. They reflect the religious renaissance which is the essence of +the reconstruction for which men crave. The symptoms are accessible to +the observation of all. Neither priestly intolerance nor rationalistic +prejudice can suppress them. + +In _The Bankruptcy of Religion_, Mr. Joseph McCabe develops the case +against religion with the skill of a trained controversialist. Like the +converted sinner in the ranks of the Salvation Army, Mr. McCabe carries +special weight to the lines of rationalists and ethicists. For he was +once a priest and lived in a monastery, and he left the priesthood and +the monastery convinced of the worthlessness of both. He is, therefore, +_persona gratissima_ at the High Court of Reason. "The era of religious +influence closes in bankruptcy," he informs us. He has no patience with +attempts at religious reconstruction; he asks us to shake ourselves free +of the vanishing dream of heaven and to leave the barren tracts of +religion. He exhorts us to abandon the "last illusions of the childhood +of the race": + + Linger no longer in the "reconstruction" of fables which once + beguiled the Arabs of the desert and the Syrian slaves of + Corinth, but set your hearts and minds to the making of a new + earth! Sweep these ancient legends out of your schools and + colleges, your army and navy, your code of law, your legislative + houses, and substitute for them a spirit of progress, efficiency, + boldness, and candour! + +Fine words, brave words, honest words, but hollow within. Mr. McCabe +is no psychologist. The fables and legends of old times may be +abandoned, the desire for the realities round which fable and legend +grow remains and cannot be extirpated by a rationalistic operation. +Supernaturalism--in the widest sense--is ineradicable. Religion will not +be suspended by the discovery that it is possible to formulate excellent +theories of social equity without the assistance of priests. The hunger +of the human heart for knowledge of God persists though all the old +religious systems may prove illusions. + +Our little rationalists imagine that they are hitting the foundations of +religion when they successfully assail the crumbling walls of dogmas. +Religious life escapes their fire. Faith and hope rise above +disillusionment. Love knows instinctively that it is not made of dust. +Through the darkness and the wilderness it calls to God, and lo! God +responds with light and guidance which outlast earthquakes and +massacres. Reject every creed that has been offered as an explanation of +the mysteries of life, forsake all the humiliating, joy-killing penances +for sin, and God will reveal Himself in the beauty of Nature. He will +speak through the impulses of creative art, through music and poetry and +painting. He will attract our thought through philosophy and our +emotion through the impetus to improve the social order. And +science--the greater science, which rejects dogmatism and lies of +self-sufficiency as it rejects the crudities of the Creed--takes us by +circuitous paths to new temples for the worship of God. + +The tenet that science and religion are incompatible and antagonistic, +so dear to the hearts of the scientists in the middle of the nineteenth +century, and still repeated with mechanical certainty in every +secularist mission-hall, is likely to undergo a complete revision in the +near future. The antagonism between dogmatic religion and materialistic +science will never be removed. But the signs are apparent everywhere +that religion is shedding its adherence to outer forms and entering into +the freedom of the living spirit, whilst science is turning to problems +which used to lie within the domain of unexplored religion. Religion +will become scientific and science will become religious. The principles +laid down by Darwin and Huxley have lost their power of stifling +religious aspiration; the startling pronouncements in defiant +materialism of Buechner and Haeckel now startle none but the ignorant. +The anxiety to exclude scientific facts disappears with the realization +that all truth, all knowledge, all reason, are subservient to the search +for God. The struggle between the wish to believe and the temptation to +think caused real distress of mind to many thinkers of the nineteenth +century. The choice seemed to lie between atheism and blind submission +to authority. "Let us humbly take anything the Bible says without trying +to understand it, and not torment ourselves with arguments," said +Charles Kingsley. "One word of Scripture is more than a hundred words of +man's explaining." The modern mind does not dread the meeting of science +and religion. It does not labour to reconcile them. It is conscious of +their ultimate identity and their present insufficiency. Hence a new +tolerance which is mistaken for indifference by the zealots on both +sides. Hence the absence of actuality in the fierce denunciations of +Bradlaugh and Holyoake and Ingersoll. They did valiant battle against +religious formalism of the past; they were champions of reason and +science at a time when religionists fought to exclude both. + +It is not science which is undermining the future of institutional +religion. There is a new enemy, more subtle and more powerful. It is +the growing consciousness of an intolerable inconsistency between +religious theory and practice. The war thus becomes a stumbling-block to +faithfulness to conventional Christianity, and the glee of the +rationalist is pardonable. I again quote Mr. McCabe: + + What did the clergy do to prevent the conflict? In which country + did they denounce the preparations for the conflict, or the + incentives of the conflict? What have they done since it began to + confine the conflict within civilized limits? Have they had, or + used, a particle of moral influence throughout the whole bloody + business? And, if not, is it not time we found other guardians + and promoters of high conduct? + +Apart from the fact that the Pope and some lesser religious leaders have +denounced and deplored the conflict, and that a comprehensive answer to +Mr. McCabe's question would somewhat modify the implied moral impotence +of the clergy, we might ask the same questions of the leaders of +secularist morality. What have they done to prevent the conflict? Why +have their intellectual giants failed to impress upon mankind the folly +of war? They have had freedom of speech and action, they have wielded +incisive criticism and strength of invective. They have had many decades +in which to put into practice the theory of the greatest happiness of +the greatest number. But the problem of the persistence of war has +somehow escaped atheists and rationalists, just as it has eluded +theologians and revivalists. + +We may admit that the clergy are more blameworthy than the orators of +rationalism. If the teachings of Jesus Christ are to be applied to the +art of war, then the art of war is doomed to extinction. If the Church +be an international society, based on mutual love and peace, then the +perpetration of war on members of the Church is clearly wrong. If the +ideals of the Christian life be charity, gentleness, forgiveness, +non-resistance to evil, then all war is a violation of the faith. The +question is not unimportant. It is not a subject which you can toy with, +or put aside as having no immediate bearing on life and duty. If the +literal application of the teaching of Christ to social and political +life be impossible, then the rationalists are right when they urge us to +drop a religion which we profess on Sunday and repudiate on Monday. If +the fault lies not in the teaching itself but in the feebleness of the +Church, then the Church must clearly be counted a failure. If the cause +of the discrepancy is to be found merely in the slowness and obstinacy +of the human soul in following the path of righteousness, the practical +realization of the Christian ideal will be but a question of time and +effort. + +The attitude of Christianity towards war may at best be described as a +chapter of inconsistencies. "Can it be lawful to handle the sword," +asked Tertullian, "when the Lord Himself has declared that he who uses +the sword shall perish by it?" By disarming Peter, he stated, the Lord +"disarmed every soldier from that time forward." To Origen, Christians +were children of peace who, for the sake of Jesus, shunned the +temptations of war, and whose only weapon was prayer. The difficulty of +reconciling the profession of Christianity with the practice of war +constantly exercised the minds of the early Christians. St. Basil +advocated a compromise in the form of temporary exclusion from the +sacrament after military service. St. Augustine came to the conclusion +that the qualities of a good Christian and a good warrior were not +incompatible. Gradually the dilemma ceased to trouble the minds of +Christians as the needs of the State and citizenship of this world were +recognized. After some centuries the Church not only approved of war, +but herself became one of the most powerful instigators to military +conquest. The Crusades and the ceaseless wars of religious intolerance +became "holy" as the spiritual objection to bloodshed receded before the +triumphant demands of primitive passions. + +Now, as heretofore, we have episcopal reminders of the blessings of war. +"May it not be," wrote the Bishop of London soon after the outbreak of +the war in 1914, "that this cup of hardship which we drink together will +turn out to be the very draught which we need? Has there not crept a +softness over the nation, a passion for amusement, a love of luxury +among the rich, and of mere physical comfort among the middle class?" + +He leaves the questions unanswered, and incidentally omits to dwell on +the shortcomings of the poor in the direction of softness and luxury. He +continues: + + Not such was the nation which made the Empire, which crushed the + Armada, which braved hardships of old, and drove English hearts + of oak seaward round the world. We believe the old spirit is here + just the same, but it needed a purifying, cleansing draught to + bring it back to its old strength and purity again, and for that + second reason the cup which our Father has given us, shall we not + drink it? + +Much has been said in justification of this view of war from the +biological point of view. Prussian militarists are experts in the +exposition of similar theories. But from the Christian point of view the +complacency with which the world-tragedy is put down as a "purifying, +cleansing draught" is somewhat disconcerting. Dean Inge, writing in the +_Quest_ in the autumn of 1914, shows himself to be a disciple of the +same school: + + We see the fruits of secularism or materialism in social + disintegration, in the voluntary sterility and timorous + acquisitiveness of the prosperous, and in the recklessness + and bitterness of the lower strata. A godless civilization is + a disease of which nations die by inches. I hope that this + visitation has come just in time to save us. Experience is a + good school, but its fees are terribly high! + +Were we, then, really so bad that "this visitation" was needed to save +us from voluntary sterility (by imposing compulsory?) and the other +delinquencies enumerated by the Dean? The nature of the punishment +hardly fits the crime. Moreover, such a conception of war as a +wholesome corrective is practically indistinguishable from the +panegyrics of the extreme militarists whom we are out utterly to +destroy. "God will see to it," wrote Treitschke, "that war always recurs +as a drastic medicine for the human race." "War," wrote General von +Bernhardi, "is a biological necessity of the first importance, a +regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed +with, since without it an unhealthy development will follow which +excludes every advancement of the race, and, therefore, all real +civilization." "A perpetual peace," said Field-Marshal von Moltke, "is a +dream, and not even a beautiful dream. War is one of the elements of +order in the world established by God. The noblest virtues of men are +developed therein. Without war the world would degenerate and disappear +in a morass of materialism." Many perplexed souls have turned to the +Church for guidance during this time of destruction and sorrow, and the +directions given have often increased the perplexity. The Bishop of +Carlisle expressed the opinion that if we were really Christians the war +would not have happened. Archdeacon Wilberforce and Father Bernard +Vaughan stated that killing Germans was doing service to God. Many who +have suffered at the hands of the Germans will be inclined to agree, but +the trouble from the point of view of the Christian ethic is not removed +by such a simple solution. We cannot but suspect that German prelates +have been found who have seen in the killing of women and children by +air-raids on London a service to the German God. Dr. Forsyth, in _The +Christian Ethic of War_, tells us that "war is not essentially killing, +and killing is here no murder. And no recusancy to bear arms can here +justify itself on the plea that Christianity forbids all bloodshed or +even violence." He reminds us that Christ used a scourge of small cords, +and that he called the Pharisees "you vipers," and Herod "you fox." "If +the Christian man live in society," he tells us, "it is quite impossible +for him to live upon the _precepts_ of the Sermon on the Mount. But also +it is not possible at a half-developed stage to live in actual relations +of life and duty on its _principle_ except as an _ideal_." The Roman +form of internationalism he regards "as not only useless to humanity +(which the present attitude of the Pope to the war shows) but as +mischievous to it." + +It is strange that whilst the war has caused a number of ordained +representatives of the Christian Church to declare that practical +Christianity is an impossibility and the Sermon on the Mount a beautiful +but ineffective ideal, it has brought agnostics and heathen to a +conviction that socialized Christianity is the sovereign remedy for the +national and international disease. They have reached the conclusion +that the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount is the revolutionary leaven +for which the world is waiting. In his preface on _The Prospects of +Christianity_, Mr. Bernard Shaw tells us that he is "as sceptical and +scientific and modern a thinker as you will find anywhere." This +assurance is intended to help us to regain breath after the preceding +pronouncement: + + I am no more a Christian than Pilate was, or you, gentle reader; + and yet, like Pilate, I greatly prefer Jesus to Annas and + Caiaphas; and I am ready to admit that after contemplating the + world and human nature for nearly sixty years, I see no way out + of the world's misery but the way which would have been found by + Christ's will if He had undertaken the work of a modern practical + statesman. + +This is one of the outstanding mental phenomena of the war: sceptics and +thinkers have begun to examine Christianity as a practical way of +social salvation. There is a tendency to re-examine the gospel, not with +intent to lay stress on historical weakness or points of similarity with +other religions, but with the poignant interest which men lost in the +desert display towards possible sources of water. It may appear as a +coldly intellectual interest in some who are wont to deal with the +tragedies of life as mildly amusing scenes in a drama of endless +fatuity. But the coldness is a little assumed. There are others who do +not attempt to disguise that their whole emotional life is stirred to +passionate protest and inquiry, who, though Christians by profession and +duly appointed ministers of God, call for a recommendation of +Christianity and the establishment of a social order based on the +principles of life laid down by Jesus Christ. In _The Outlook for +Religion_, Dr. W. E. Orchard condemns the way of war as the complete +antithesis of the way of the Cross. "How can people be so blind?" he +cries. "Has all the ethical awakening of the past century been of so +little depth that this bloody slaughter, this hellish torture, this +treacherous game of war can still secure ethical approval?" + +Perhaps the great majority of the clergy deserve the indictment of +rationalists. Mr. McCabe can prove his case by citing the exceptions. +After all, the accusation is neither new nor original. Voltaire set the +tune. "Miserable physicians of souls," he exclaimed, "you declaim for +five quarters of an hour against the mere pricks of a pin, and say no +word on the curse which tears us into a thousand pieces." + +Voltaire's powers of satire were roused by the spectacle of the +different factions of Christians praying to the same God to bless their +arms. The element of comicality in this aspect of war is greatly +outweighed by that of pathos. Those who earnestly pray to God to lead +them to victory must at any rate be firmly convinced that their cause is +one of which God can approve. No believer would dare to invoke the +blessing of God upon a cause which his conscience tells him is a mean +and sordid enterprise. Voltaire's quarrel was really with the faith in +war as a means of determining the intentions of the Divine Will. Success +in war has been held, and is held, by Christians to be a sign of the +favour of the Almighty. Bacon expounded this view to the satisfaction of +coming generations when he referred to wars as "the highest trials of +right" when princes and States "shall put themselves on the justice of +God for the deciding of their controversies, by such success as it shall +please Him to give on either side." The Germans have nauseated the world +by their incessant proclamations that they are the favoured and chosen +of God. The good old German God has vied with Jehovah of the Israelites +in stimulating and sustaining the will to war. + +Those atheists to whom all war is an abomination and entirely +irreconcilable with the highest human attributes have found complete +unanimity in their repudiation of the idea of a presiding God of +Battles in the dissenting objections to war expressed by Quakers, +Christadelphians, Plymouth Brethren, and other sects of Christianity. +There can be no doubt that the faith in war, and in the Divine guidance +of war, is receding. The new conception of God, for which humanity is +struggling, will be one entirely different from the jealous and cruel +Master of Bloodshed to whom man has paid homage in the dark ages of the +past. The truth is that the spiritual objection to war, the realization +of its antisocial and inhuman qualities, is becoming a religious purpose +which unites Christians and non-Christians, atheists and agnostics, +and which carries with it at once a mordant condemnation of the +interpretations of the past, and an irrepressible demand for a future +free from the old menace and the old mistakes. All sane men and women +want to abolish war. General Smuts believes that a passion for peace has +been born which will prove stronger than all the passion for war which +has overwhelmed us in the past. President Wilson seeks a peace identical +with the freedom of life in which every people will be left free to +determine its own polity and its own way of development, "unhindered, +unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful." +Statesmen see the ultimate hope for a free humanity in a change of +heart. Mr. Asquith outlines the slow and gradual process by which a real +European partnership, based on the recognition of equal right and +established and enforced by a common will, will be substituted for +force, for the clash of competing ambition, for groupings and alliances, +and a precarious equipoise. Mr. Lloyd George insists that there must be +"no next time." Viscount Grey warns us that if the world cannot organize +against war, if war must go on, "then nations can protect themselves +henceforth only by using whatever destructive agencies they can invent, +till the resources and inventions of science end by destroying the +humanity they were meant to serve." Leagues of nations are proposed, +organization for peace on a scale commensurate with the past +organization for war is recognized as the principal task of +international co-operation. + +This new revolt against war is inseparable from the religious revival of +the time. The word "revival" conjures up memories of less strenuous +times, when men were concerned with smaller problems, and uninspired by +the bitter experience of the present--Spurgeon thundering in his +Tabernacle, Salvation Army meetings, small gatherings in wayside +villages, at which howling sinners were converted and revivalists +counted their game by the dozen. The present revival is something for +which the past provides no analogy. It is not concerned so much with +individual salvation as with the salvation of the race and the world. +The petty sins and shortcomings which brought men to the confessional +and to the stool of repentance lose importance when compared with the +awful omissions which we now recognize as the cause of the calamities +which have befallen us. It is not only the existence of war that is +rousing the conscience. War is seen to be but a symptom, a horrible +outbreak of malignant forces, which we have nurtured and harboured in +times of peace. These forces permeate the very structure of society. A +new and fierce light beats on our slums, our industrialism, on the old +divisions of class and quality, on the standards of comfort and success. +Poverty, sickness, and child mortality--the whole hideous war of Mammon +through which millions of our fellow-creatures are condemned to the +perpetual service of Want--can no longer conveniently be left outside +the operations of our religious consciousness. + +One thing is certain: we can no longer be satisfied with a religion +which pays lip-service to God, and offers propitiating incense to His +wrath, whilst it ignores the misery and the suffering of those who have +no reason to offer thanksgiving. Religious profession and religious +action will have to be unified. The sense of social responsibility is +slowly but surely taking the place of the anxiety to assure one's own +salvation. Some churches are empty, dead; they have no message for the +people, no vision wherewith to inspire the young. They might with +advantage close, and their clergy be employed upon some useful national +service. Ritual and incantations are doubtless useful aids to religious +worship and the necessary quietude of mind, but they are losing their +hold over souls to whom religious life has become a matter of social +service. These are of the order spoken of by Ernest Crosby: + + None could tell me where my soul might be. + I searched for God, but God eluded me. + I sought my brother out--and found all three. + +The number of "unbelievers" is growing. There are certain doctrines +which we cannot believe because they violate our reason, or our sense of +justice and fair play. Centuries ago it may have been possible to +believe them: that is no concern of ours. To each age its own mind and +its own enlightenment. What is more disquieting to the rulers of +orthodoxy is that we do not care, that we cannot believe in certain +doctrines. Doctrines are at a discount just now. The Church may quarrel +over Kikuyu, or the Apostolic Succession, or the Virgin Birth, or marvel +at the new possibility of a canon of the Church of England preaching a +sermon in the City Temple. We feel that it is infinitely more important +that a few experiments in practical Christianity should be imposed on +the world. Religion in the past has been conceived as essentially a +matter of suppressing the intellect, submitting to oppression and +injustice, learning to bear patiently the inflictions of Providence. +Religion in the future will demand all the attention which our feeble +intellect can offer it, and the conscious and willing co-operation of +mankind in the realization of God's plans for a regenerated world. + +Whilst the Churches addicted to ritualism and literalism decline, the +Brotherhood movement gains in force and influence. Men meet to give +united expression to their religious impulses. They meet for prayer and +worship, but never without immediate bearing on some great social +question or object. Opinions are freely expressed. Heterodoxy in details +of faith is rampant, and is no obstacle to Christian fellowship. To the +Sunday afternoon and evening gatherings of the Brotherhood flock the +many to whom the Bible is still a source of spiritual food, and who +demand a plain and practical interpretation of its teachings. An +impromptu prayer, in which the keynote is the loving fatherhood of God, +and its bearing on the brotherhood of man, precedes a homely address or +sermon, closely packed with allusions to social and political questions. +Or the address is entirely secular; a downright unbeliever has been +invited to give the audience the benefit of his knowledge or experience, +in connection with some great movement for the betterment of the world. +There is a disinclination to criticize anybody's religious views, +provided he shows by his acts and life that he is part of the new +Ministry of Humanity. Here we have the pivot of the change which is +overtaking the forms of religious expression. + +Men are no longer content to regard this world as a hopeless place of +squalor and sin, as intrinsically and incurably wicked, as an abode +which cannot be mended and which must, therefore, be despised and +forsaken in spirit, even before the time when it has to be forsaken in +body. The possible flawlessness of an other-worldly state no longer +compensates for the glaring faults of this. This is no sign of the +weakening of the spiritual hold on reality. It is a sign of the +spiritualization of the values of life. It is a sign that we begin to +understand that we _are_ spirits here, now, and everywhere, that we see +that time in this world and the way we employ it have a profound +bearing on eternity. There is no reason, in the name of God or man, why +we should be content to let this world remain a place of torment and +foolishness, if we have reached a point when we can see the better way. +There is a certain type of religious mind which dreads the idea of +social reconstruction, on the assumption that we shall not long for +heaven if conditions here below are made less hellish. + +There is also a type of churchman whose finer sensibilities are sorely +tried by the secular occupations of nonconformity in general. If once or +twice in their lives they should stray amongst Congregationalists, +Baptists, or Methodists, they come away disgusted at the brutal +directness with which social evils are exposed in the light of the word +of the Lord. They complain of the general lack of finesse and Latin; the +licence of the pulpit has usurped the reverence of the altar. It is +perfectly true that statements are sometimes made in nonconformist +pulpits which are bald and offensive to the ear of scholarly +accomplishment. But the complaint of secularization is singularly inept. +Nothing could be more secular in the way of complacent acceptance of the +worldly reasons for leaving awkward questions alone than the attitude +of this type of critic. + +The future life of Christianity is safely vested in the _free_ Churches. +The freedom will be progressive, and may possibly embrace a vista of +unfettered interpretation and application of Christian knowledge which +will be as remote from the dogmatism of to-day as is our present +attitude from the intolerance which kindled the Inquisition and made +possible the night of St. Bartholomew. Religious intolerance has already +lost three-fourths of its hold on faith. Catholic will now slaughter +Catholic without the stimulus to hostility afforded by heretical +opinions. Protestants are not restrained from injuring each other by the +common bond of detestation of the adherents to papacy. The decline of +intolerance is a direct consequence of the externalization of the +religious life. Rationalists constantly mistake this process for the +degeneration of religion. They fail to see the simple fact that men can +afford to dispense with the paraphernalia of elaborate and artificial +aids to the worship of God when they feel His presence within their own +souls and unmistakably hear His call to action. + +Some will see in the decay of intolerance an indication of the general +evaporation of Christian articles of faith, and the possible loss of +identity in some new form of religion. There is no danger. No religion +can live in opposition to the evolution of the human spirit. It must be +sufficiently deep to meet the most exacting need of individual religious +experience, and it must be sufficiently broad and elastic to correspond +to the ever-changing phenomena of social evolution. Christianity has +this depth and this breadth. Two parallel lines of its development are +clearly discernible at the present time. One is the transubstantiation +of faith in social service; the other is a demand for individualized +experience of spiritual realities. It is becoming more and more +difficult to believe a thing simply because you are told you ought to +believe it, or because your father and grandfather believed it. +Authority in matters religious is being superseded by exploration. He +who feels with Swinburne that + + Save his own soul he has no star, + +and he for whom space is peopled with living souls mounting the ladder +to the throne of God, share the desire to experience the truth. +Mysticism is passing through strange phases of resurrection. Its modern +garb is made up of all the hues of the past, and, in addition, contains +some up-to-date threads of severely utilitarian composition. The number +of those who claim direct experience of spiritual verity as against mere +hearsay is greater than ever. The discovery of the soul is attracting +students of every description. The powers of suggestion, and the +creative possibilities of the subconscious mind, have opened up new +fields of religious experiment and adventure. The art of controlling the +mind, so as to make it immune against the depredations of evil thought, +or fear, or worry, is pursued by crowds of amateur psychologists who +delight in the happy results. They are learning to live in tune with the +infinite or cultivating optimism with complete success. To the objection +that they live in an artificial paradise they reply that thought is the +essence of things, and that they are but carrying into practice the +oft-repeated belief that we _are_ such stuff as dreams are made of. + +"Religion," says Professor William James in _The Varieties of Religious +Experience_, "in short, is a monumental chapter in the history of human +egoism. The Gods believed in--whether by crude savages or by men +disciplined intellectually--agree with each other in recognizing a +personal call." How could it be otherwise? The solitariness of each +human soul is the first fact in religious consciousness. Altruism and +communion with other souls are perforce attained through concern with +the state of the ego. The spiritual egoism which demands pure thought, +peace wherein to gather impressions of goodness, beauty, and truth, time +for the analysis of psychic law, direct knowledge which is proof against +the disease of doubt, is, after all, the most valuable contribution +which the individual can make to society. The people who are now greatly +concerned with the exact temperature of their own minds are, at any +rate, to be congratulated on having made the discovery, which is +centuries overdue, that hygiene of the soul is more important than +hygiene of the body. + +Placid contentment with the religious systems of the past is greatly +disturbed by this assertiveness. There is a demand for a new message, +couched in terms suited to the mental level of the twentieth century. A +message delivered two thousand years ago to a small pastoral people, +altogether innocent of the complicated economic, and industrial +conditions of our times, must necessarily appear incomplete to minds +which can only reproduce the simplicity by an effort of the imagination. +Jesus, they maintain, was a Jew who spoke to Jews, and who had to deal +with simple fishermen and agriculturists, with Eastern merchants and +narrow-minded scribes. He never met great financiers to whose chariots +of gold whole populations are chained, or great masters of industry who +profitably run a thousand mills where human flesh and bone are ground in +the production of wealth. He knew naught, they feel, of the history of +philosophy, or the psychology of religion, or the researches of +physiology and chemistry. His language, coming to us as it does through +the medium of interpreters of a bygone age, and through the simple +symbols of less sophisticated minds, has poetic beauty, but lacks our +modern comprehensiveness. + +There is a feeling that it is unreasonable to believe that God spoke +once or twice, thousands of years ago, and that He cannot or will not +speak now. Revelation cannot have been final; it must surely be +progressive, gradual, fitted to the needs and the receptivity of souls. +The written word is not the only word. The living word must be spoken +now, and will be spoken with greater effectiveness in the future. Hence +the expectation that a new world-teacher will appear, that a master will +be born who will gather up the truth and the inspiration of the creeds +of the past and present them, together with a new message, suited to the +hunger of to-day. Theosophists have lately made the idea of the coming +of such a teacher the central hope of social regeneration. + +They assume that when the teacher comes all the world will listen and +obey. It seems to me that teacher after teacher has uttered the +truth--Hermes, Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Orpheus, Jesus--and that +the trouble is not lack of teachers but lack of disciples. In the +teachings of Jesus Christ, the world has a model wherewith to mould the +old order of hate and selfishness into a new rule of love and +brotherhood. The model has never been used; no serious and far-reaching +attempt has as yet been made to give Christianity a politico-social +trial. Why should a new world-teacher be more successful? What guarantee +is there that his voice would not be drowned in the general clamour of +the truth-mongers of the marketplace? And the tendency of the modern +religious consciousness is to seek reality personally, to develop the +latent faculties by which experience can be won, and to delve fearlessly +into the hidden depth of the soul in search of truth. + +The great religions of the past have given the bread of life to +countless souls. They have all provided ways and means for our ethical +evolution. Religious eclecticism is natural to the cultured mind, which +can no longer be held back by any threats of excommunication. The +essence of religion, and the way of salvation, have been found along +widely divergent paths and under many names. One thing is certain amidst +innumerable uncertainties: the secret of finding God can only be +unravelled when we find our own souls. + + + + +_Printed in Great Britain by_ UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, WOKING AND +LONDON. + + + + +Problems of the Peace + +BY WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON + +Author of "The Evolution of Modern Germany" + +_Demy 8vo._ _7s. 6d. net._ + +The author discusses in fourteen chapters, among other questions, the +Territorial Adjustments which seem necessary to the permanent peace of +Europe, the problem of German Autocracy and Militarism, and the +proposals of Retaliation; and makes, in the spirit of an optimist +tempered by experience, practical suggestions for the future +organization of peace. A feature of the book is the historical +parallelism which runs through it. + + + + +After-War Problems + +BY THE LATE EARL OF CROMER, VISCOUNT HALDANE, THE BISHOP OF EXETER, +PROF. 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