Chapter VI: Salvation Through Self-Realisation (3)

And if we have never before realised how great are the opportunities and responsibilities of the teacher, we must surely do so now. For a certain number of years--the number varies with the social standing of the child, and the financial resources of his parents--the teacher can afford to disregard utilitarian considerations and think only of what is best for the child. What use will he make of those years? Will he lead the child into the path of self-realisation, and so give a lifelong impetus to the growth of his soul? Or will he, in his thirst for "results," lead him into the path of mechanical obedience, or, at best, of one-sided development, and so blight his budding faculties and arrest the growth of his soul? On the practical answer that he gives to this question will depend the fate of the child. For to the child the difference between the two paths will be the difference between fulfilling and missing his destiny, between knowledge and ignorance of God.

If any of my readers have imagined that I am an advocate of what is called "secular education," they will, I hope, now realise that they have misread this book. Far from wishing to secularise education, I hold that it cannot be too religious. And, far from wishing to limit its religious activities to the first forty minutes of the morning sessions, I hold that it should be actively religious through every minute of every school session, that whatever it does it should do to the glory of God.

But how does knowledge of God show itself? Knowledge, so far as it is real, always shows itself in right bearing, and (if action is called for) in right action. Knowledge of arithmetic and of other more or less abstract subjects, shows itself in the successful working of the corresponding problems, theoretical or practical as the case may be. Knowledge of the laws of physical nature shows itself in practical mastery of the forces and resources of physical nature. Knowledge of history and geography, in a right attitude towards the problems and sub-problems of these complex and comprehensive subjects, an attitude which may on occasion translate itself into right action. And so on. Knowledge of God, being a state or attitude of the soul as such, must show itself in the right bearing and the right action of the soul as such, in other words, of Man as Man,--not as mathematician, not as financier, not as sculptor, not as cricketer, but simply as Man. Now Man as Man has to bear himself aright towards the world in which he finds himself, and in particular towards the world which touches him most closely and envelops him most completely,--the world of human life. Therefore knowledge of God will show itself, principally and chiefly, though by no means wholly, in dealing aright with one's fellow-men, in being rightly disposed towards them, and in doing the right things to them. I have found it convenient to disconnect the moral from the religious aspect of self-realisation. We can now see that in the last resort the two aspects are one.

From every point of view, then, and above all from that of Religion, the path of self-realisation is seen to be the path of salvation. For it is the only scheme of life which enables him who follows it to attain to knowledge of God; and knowledge of God has, as its necessary counterpart, a right attitude, in general towards the world which surrounds him, and in particular towards his fellow-men.

But is it possible, within the limits of one earth-life, to follow the path of self-realisation to its appointed goal? And if not, will the path be continued beyond that abrupt turn in it which we call death? The respective attitudes of the two great schools of popular thought towards the problem of the grave, are in brief as follows. The Materialists (or Naturalists, as they miscall themselves) believe that death is the end of life. The Supernaturalists believe that one earth-life (or even a few years or months) of mechanical obedience to supernatural direction will be rewarded by an eternity of happiness in "Heaven." But those who walk in the path of self-realisation, and whose unswerving loyalty to Nature is rewarded by some measure of insight into her deeper laws, know that the goal of the path is infinitely far away, and in their heart of hearts they laugh both the current eschatologies to scorn. And the higher they ascend, as they follow the path, the more vividly do they realise how unimaginably high above them is the summit of the mountain which the path is ascending in spiral coils.

The Utopian experiment, humble as it is, can, I think, throw some light on these mighty problems. The relations between the type and the various sub-types, between the type and the individual, between the sub-type and the individual--whether in plant or beast or man--are matters which could not be handled within the limits of this book, and which I have therefore as far as possible ignored. Nor have I attempted to deal with the difficult problems that are presented by the existence of races, such as the Negro, which seem to be far below the normal level of human development. There is, however, in the vast region of thought which these and kindred problems open out to us, one by-way which I must be allowed to follow for a while.

The wild _bullace_ is, I believe, the ancestor of many of our yellow _plums_. In other words, bullacehood can develop into plumhood, and even into the perfection of plumhood. Similarly human nature can develop into something so high above the normal level of human nature that it might almost seem to belong to another _genus_. But there is a difference between the two cases. The bullace ideal is in the individual bullace tree. So, in a sense, is the plum ideal. But the latter cannot be realised, or even approached, by the individual bullace tree. It cannot be realised, or even approached, by the bullace species except through a long course of culture and breeding. Is it the same with Man? Let us take English rusticity as a particular type of human nature,--the equivalent of bullacehood for the purpose of argument. This is a distinct type, and may be said to have its own ideal.[37] Emerging from this, and gradually transforming it, is the ideal of human nature, the ideal for Man as Man. As the bullace ideal is to the plum ideal, so is the ideal of English rusticity to the ideal of human nature. But whereas the plum ideal cannot be realised in any appreciable degree by the individual bullace, the human ideal can be realised in a quite appreciable degree by the individual English rustic. There have always been and will always be isolated cases to prove that this is so,--cases of men of quite humble origin who have attained to high degrees of mental and spiritual development. These have hitherto been regarded as exceptional cases. But Egeria has convinced me that under favourable conditions the _average_ child can become the rare exception, and attain to what is usually regarded as a remarkably high degree of mental and spiritual development. Innocent joy, self-forgetfulness, communal devotion, heartfelt goodwill, gracious manners--to speak of spiritual development only--are characteristics of _every_ Utopian child. What are we to infer from this? The bullace ideal is realisable (under favourable conditions) by each individual bullace tree,--but the plum ideal is not. The English rustic ideal is realisable by each individual rustic child. _But so is the human ideal in Utopia._

But what of the children who do not belong to Utopia? What would have happened to the Utopian children if there had been no Egeria to lead them into the path of self-realisation? They would have lived and died ordinary English rustics,--healthy bullaces, but in no respect or degree plums. Egeria has convinced me that the average child, besides being born mentally and spiritually healthy, has immense capacity on every side of his being. The plum ideal is the true nature of the plum, but is not the true nature of the bullace. But Egeria has convinced me that the human ideal--the divine self--is the true nature of each of us, even of the average rustic child; and she has also convinced me that each of us can go a long way towards realising that ideal. Had there been no Egeria in Utopia, the Utopians would have lived and died undeveloped, having arrived at a maturity of a kind, the maturity of the bullace as distinguished from that of the plum, but having failed to realise in any appreciable degree what the Utopian experiment has proved to be their true nature. What then? Is this the end of the average man? Will Nature admit final defeat? The curve of a man's life, as it sweeps round from birth to death, passes through the point of apparent maturity; but the real nature of the man has never ripened, and when he descends into the grave he is still the embryo of his true self. Will the true self never be realised? Never, if death is indeed the end of life. But in that case the man will have failed to fulfil the central purpose of Nature, and, alone among her children, will have escaped from the control of her all-pervading law of growth.

It is in their desire to keep Man in line with the rest of Nature's children that so many thinkers and scientists in the West forbid him to look beyond the horizon of the grave. But in truth it is only by being allowed to look beyond that horizon that Man can be kept in line with the rest of Nature's children; for if death means extinction to him, as it means (or seems to mean) to the beetle or the fly, he will have lived to no purpose, having failed to realise in any appreciable degree what every other living thing realises within its appointed limits,--the central tendencies of his being. That a living thing, an average specimen of its kind, should within the limits of a normal life fail completely to realise those potentialities which are distinctive of its real nature,--fail so completely that the very existence of those potentialities might, but for an occasional and quite exceptional revelation, have remained unsuspected,--is entirely at variance with what we know of the ways and works of Nature. Yet failure to realise his true manhood is, outside the confines of Utopia, the apparent lot of nine men out of ten. An entire range of qualities, spiritual and mental, which blossom freely in the stimulating atmosphere of Utopia, and which must therefore exist in embryo in every normal child, fail to germinate (or at best only just begin to germinate) within the lifetime of the average non-Utopian.[38] The inference to be drawn from these significant facts is that the apparent limits of Man's life are not the real limits; that the one earth-life of which each of us is conscious, far from being the whole of one's life, is but a tiny fragment of it,--one term of its ascending "series," one day in its cycle of years. In other words, the spiritual fertility of the average Utopian child, taken in conjunction with the spiritual sterility of the average non-Utopian child (and man), points to the conclusion which the thinkers of the Far East reached thousands of years ago,--that for the full development of human nature a plurality of lives is needed, which will do for the individual soul what generations of scientific breeding and culture will do for the bullace that is to be transformed into a plum.

This is one lesson which Utopia has taught me. There is another which had also been anticipated by the thinkers of the Far East. If under exceptionally favourable conditions certain spiritual and mental qualities are able to blossom freely in the space of a few years, which under normal conditions would remain undeveloped during a lifetime of seventy or eighty years, may we not infer that there is a directer path to spiritual maturity than that which is ordinarily followed? May we not infer that there are ways of living, ways into which parents and teachers can lead the young, which, if faithfully followed, will allow the potencies of Man's higher nature to evolve themselves with what we, with our limited experience, must regard as abnormal celerity, and which will therefore shorten appreciably Man's journey to his goal?[39] And if there is a directer path to spiritual maturity than that which is ordinarily followed, is not the name for it _Self-realisation_?

I will not pursue these speculations further. But, speaking for myself, I will say that the vista which the idea of self-realisation opens up to me goes far beyond the limits of any one earth-life or sequence of earth-lives, and far, immeasurably far, beyond the limits of the sham eternity of the conventional Heaven and Hell.

But even if there is the fullest provision in Nature (whether by a spiral ascent through a long chain of lives, or by some directer path) for the final development in each individual man of the potencies of perfect manhood, for the final realisation of the divine or true self,--what then? What does it all mean? Why are we to follow the path of self-realisation? What is the purpose of the cycle of existence? There is an answer to this obstinate question,--an answer which explains nothing, and yet is final, in that it leaves nothing to be explained. The expansive energies and desires, to yield to which is our wisdom and our happiness, are ever transforming themselves, as we yield to them, into the might and the ardour of Love. And for love there is no final resting-place but the sea of Divine Love from which it came. "_Amor ex Deo natus est, nec potest nisi in Deo requiescere._"

FOOTNOTES:

[25] There is of course an intermediate class of vicious tendencies, which may be described as apparent rather than actual, and which are caused partly by immaturity, partly by environment. Many of the "naughtinesses" of school children belong to this class.

[26] The _physical_ aspect is, of course, of incalculable importance. My only reason for ignoring it is that I am not competent to deal with it. The _æsthetic_ aspect is also of incalculable importance; but I know so little about music or art, that I must limit my treatment of this aspect to pointing out that until the musical and artistic instincts of the masses are systematically trained in our elementary schools, through the medium of free self-expression on the part of the children, we shall have neither a national music nor a national art.

[27] Workshops, for the use of the engineering classes, are, I believe, attached to the "Modern Side" of some of our Great Public Schools; but I doubt if there is one among the Great Public Schools, or even among the Preparatory Schools which lead up to them, in which "hand-work" is part of the _normal_ curriculum.

[28] I know a youth who recently attended Science lectures for two years at one of the most famous of our Great Public Schools, and at the end of that time had not the faintest idea what branch of Science he had been studying. Science is, I believe, seriously taught in the Great Public Schools to those who wish to take it seriously; but, if taught at all, it is certainly not taught seriously to the rank and file of the boys who belong to the "Classical side" of their respective schools.

[29] See also footnote 2 to page 270.

[30] When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, there was one at least of my friends who took a genuine delight in the literary masterpieces of Greece and Rome,--the delight, not of a fastidious scholar but of a born lover of good literature. He got a "Third" in Classical "Mods," and was "gulfed" in "Greats." "Serve him right," his "dons" must have said, for I am afraid he cut their lectures. [Greek: hôs apoloito kai allos hotis toiauta ge rhezoi.]

[31] _Stanzas on the Grande Chartreuse_, by Matthew Arnold.

[32] When I apply the epithet "irrational" to the outcry at Ephesus, I am thinking of the mob, not of the silversmiths. The latter knew what they were about.

[33] Having said so much in disparagement of the mental training given in the great Public Schools and the older Universities, let me now try to make my peace with my old school and my University by expressing my conviction that those who are studying the "Humanities," whether at school or college, _and finding pleasure in their studies_, are receiving the best education that is at present procurable in England. An old Oxonian may perhaps be allowed to make public profession of his faith in the special efficacy of that course of study which is known familiarly as "Greats," the examination in which is, of all examinations, the most difficult to cram for and the most profitable to read for.

It is scarcely necessary for me to add that in the older Universities, as in the great Public Schools, many valuable educative influences are at work outside the lecture-room. For one thing, the undergraduates, who come from all parts of the world, are always educating one another. For another thing, the "atmosphere" of Oxford and Cambridge does much for the mental and spiritual development of those who are able to respond to its stimulus. Even the _genius loci_ is educative, in its own quiet, subtle way. But it would be an impertinence on my part to labour this point. It is because Oxford and Cambridge educate their _alumni_ in a thousand ways, the worth of which no formal examination can test or measure, that they stand apart from all other Universities.

[34] I mean by the "lower self," not the animal base of one's existence, but the ordinary self _claiming to be the true self_, and so rising in rebellion against its lawful lord.

[35] In other words, it might conceivably take the form of _clan_ warfare, highly organised and waged on a world-wide field; and we learn from the history of the Highlands of Scotland and of Old Japan that of all forms of warfare the most cruel and relentless, with the exception of that which is waged in the name of religion, is the warfare between clan and clan.

[36] There is such a thing as communal egoism, when a man regards the community or society to which he belongs as a kind of "possession," to be paraded and bragged about, just as in personal love there is such a thing as egoism _à deux_. But the communal instinct which is generated by self-realisation readily purges itself of every egoistic taint.

[37] I mean by the "ideal" the true nature of the given species and the true self of each individual specimen.

[38] When I compare the average Utopian with the average non-Utopian, I am of course thinking of the "masses," not of the "classes." If the comparison is to have any value, the conditions in the two cases must be fairly equal. Mentally, the "classes" are, on the whole, more highly developed (thanks to their more favourable environment) than the "masses." Spiritually and morally, they are perhaps on a par with them.

[39] This was the idea which inspired the Founder of Buddhism, and led him to formulate a scheme of life, in virtue of which he takes rank (as it seems to me) as the greatest educationalist, as well as the greatest moralist, that the world has ever known.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond Holmes