Secrecy — Its Value
In the face of a rampant and inane morality which is constantly seeking to befog or misinterpret a world which needs to be seen quite clearly if man is even partially to understand himself or the conditions by which he is confronted, it is well to remember that life is secret, nearly entirely so, in all its phases. Nature reveals Her secrets to no man, save grudgingly and peradventure. By dint of slow searching and because of his own necessities and sufferings he has discovered a few things—how few, as contrasted with the vast sea of the all but undiscoverable, not even the wisest can guess. And, even so, it is all a process of inclusion, and hence exclusion. How little included? And how much excluded? And Her secrecy is by no means moral or ethical or generous in any way. Yet, confronted by all the iron and pagan mysteries of a catch-as-catch-can world, and seeing daily and hourly that only the strong or shrewd or gifted, or those befriended by them, survive, and the weak and untalented are left to fester in want, and that only a rather loose and not very protective or comforting balance or equation is struck between extremes of any kind (even between his so-called God and devil), man still persists in interpreting his needs or hopes or dreams as the result of a super-tender administration of some kind, and sniffs rather disconsolately, if not quite unbelievingly, at the hard facts by which he is confronted. He is so anxious to think Nature kind, generous, non-secret. Indeed, any well-reared-and-ordered moralist or religionist would be inclined to contend, I am sure, that the world is not in the main secret, or at least not maliciously so, and that, even if it is, it should not be—innate desire for balance and equation between so-called evil and good always urging him to this conclusion.
But, Nature is secret, quite maliciously so at times, and Her secrecy is not to be escaped, even by those most anxious to condemn that phase of Her character. All of us, as a part of Her, reflect this chiefest characteristic as well as the most powerful instinct implanted in us by Her—namely, the desire to preserve ourselves and propagate our kind as against the lives and interests of all others. And, being confronted also by one of Her sternest regulations, that only the shrewd, the cunning, the appropriate or desired or presently essential or fit shall survive when assailed by millions of other creatures not so fortunately equipped, we are compelled to admit that we are at least a part of a more or less internecine struggle and so do our best, willy-nilly, as time and occasion may warrant or suggest to escape via secrecy, intrigue, cunning and the like. In other words, we are compelled to conceal that which is important to us and possibly inimical to others, showing, in times of stress, only that which will help us; hence, we, along with everything else, are compelled to be secret whether we wish to or not.
It may be mentioned here that there is a certain fish whose scientific name is Mycteroperca Bonaci and whose common name is Black Grouper, which is of considerable value in this connection. It is a healthy creature, growing to a weight of two hundred and fifty pounds and living a comfortable existence because of its very remarkable ability to adapt itself to conditions. Now while that very subtle thing which we call the creative power and which we endow with the spirit of the Beatitudes is supposed to build this mortal life in such fashion that only honesty and virtue shall prevail, still it builds this fish. Moving in its dark world of green waters, Mycteroperca has the very essence of secrecy, the power of almost instantaneous change into something quite different in so far as appearances are concerned. Its great superiority over other fishes lies in an almost unbelievable power of simulation, which relates solely to the pigmentation of its skin. In electrical mechanics we pride ourselves on our ability to make over one brilliant scene into another in the twinkling of an eye and flash picture after picture before the onlooker. The directive control of Mycteroperca over its appearance is so wonderful that you cannot look at it long without feeling that you are witnessing something spectral and unnatural, so brilliant is its power to deceive. Lying at the bottom of a bay, it can simulate the mud by which it is surrounded. Hidden in the folds of glorious leaves, it is of the same markings. Lurking in a flaw of light, it is like the light itself shining dimly in water. Its power to elude or strike unseen is of the greatest. One might go far afield and gather less forceful indictments—the horrific spider spinning his trap for the unthinking fly; the lovely Drosera (Sundew) using its crimson calyx for a smothering-pit in which to seal and devour the victim of its beauty; the rainbow-colored jellyfish that spreads its prismed tentacles like streamers of great beauty, only to sting and torture all that falls within their radiant folds. Man himself is busy digging the pit and fashioning the snare, but he will not believe it. His feet are in the trap of circumstances; his eyes are on an illusion.
But what would you say was the intention of the overruling intelligent, constructive force which gives to Mycteroperca this ability? To fit it to be truthful? Or would you say that subtlety, chicanery, trickery were here at work? An implement of illusion one might readily suspect it to be, a living lie, a creature whose business it is to appear what it is not, to simulate that with which it has nothing in common, the power of its enemies to forfend against which is little. The indictment is fair.
Yet is it not ridiculous that where all Nature is working in shadow, each thing hiding from the other its processes or thoughts of power and its intentions, that we ask of poor, spindling, cowardly, scurrying man, dodging perpetually here and there between the giant legs of chance and, in so far as he is concerned, all but malign forces, that he stand up and speak the truth in all things (would that he could discover it!) or that he say boldly and on all occasions what is in his heart, what are his intentions? Of old we know that men do not, anywhere, save in consonance with their interests, and yet the silly, self-interested request persists; a demonstration of how thought or observation and deduction and principally self-interest lag behind fact. The only thing which opposes secrecy and brings it to light is the skill for secrecy in others; another illustration of the law of balance or equation in Nature, the necessity of give and take in life, the desire of the other person to be protected from too much secrecy on the part of others. But the folly of the appeal in its ideal form, the charm that would disappear with the arrival of absolute frankness, the mystery that would go!
Ninety-nine and ninety-nine one-hundredths of all the interest or charm of all the creatures of the earth and of the circumstances and spaces and conditions in which they find themselves, is the secrecy—or, what is the same, the mystery or subtlety—which attaches to them. We do not know them; we do not understand them; we wonder at their states, their thoughts, their moods, what they will do, which way turn, when attacked, whom attack, whom deceive, whom praise, whom reward. Secrecy—secrecy—mystery. If it were gone the illusion of life itself, which is all that it is, would be gone also. And we are cautioned to love truth and to say truly and to our own hurt if necessary! And some advocate this so earnestly as part of the service due the other person, or of life to us. Yet, in the main, it comes to this: every other is to speak the truth to us, to conceal no important fact that might be helpful to us from us, to do justice to us, to think kindly of us.
A fine program, and absolutely consonant with our desire to live, prosper, succeed, regardless of the well-being of every other.
But let us reverse the program and advocate to ourselves, even in jest, that we do strict justice (if we could discover what that might be) to every other or tell him the exact truth about ourselves (heaven forbid!), our adventures, dreams, schemes; to think kindly (yes, even to think kindly in the face of the little that we know) of him. The Catholic hierarchy—which, by the way, has little to do with Messianic Christianity and its fine-spun ideals—so thoroughly understood human nature of the middle centuries as well as to-day that it introduced as an intermediary between man and his own conscience, his private shames, regrets, fears: the confessional (secrecy) in order that the average individual might free his soul of crimes without exposing himself to the fierce light of criticism which a public confession or truth-telling would entail. And the hesitation and even shame, for all its cloak of secrecy, with which the confessional is approached! The Church knew that man was not equal to the task of confronting his own accusing conscience in the open or before others but must confess in secret, if at all. Hence the drawn curtain and the reward of absolution for confession!
War, in the main the result of economic pressure, is an illustration of the necessity for secrecy, or rather the methods by which war is made—strategy, no less. Mere brute numbers clouting each other to obtain a numerical supremacy is nothing. A soldier worthy the rank of corporal would smile at such a program. Secrecy is the thing, the devising of traps and lures whereby the enemy may be betrayed and to his undoing. The spider weaving his net, the trapper devising his traps, the snake moving in grasses the color of itself, is no different to the general who by strategy (and what general without strategy is worthy the name?) seeks to encompass the enemy. Shakespeare in Macbeth, by means of the witches, suggests so archly the value of secrecy to the so-called good or just (in that instance MacDuff) in fighting evil (Macbeth) by having the soldiery of MacDuff simulate Birnam Wood by cutting off and carrying the branches of its trees towards his castle, thus lyingly fulfilling the prophecy of the witches to Macbeth that he should not be injured until Birnam Wood should rise and come against him, and so destroying his self-confidence. And, indeed, is not stark, threatening secrecy, non-moral force that it is, the thing which gives color if not joy to life and which lends surprise, uncertainty, fear and hence freedom from ennui to life, and, by contrast, hope and calculation, the greatest and most charming of all our gifts? For what game or sport, implying, as they do, friendly contest, would be worthy the name if it did not involve the element of chance or uncertainty, or, in other words, secrecy, to the extent that one cannot beforehand determine the outcome?
Again, are not all of our ambitions, if not as to their purport at least as to their outcome, secret? Nature provides secrecy, or uncertainty, which is the same thing, or darkness as a condition for the development of quite everything, from seeds to human plans, and builds and builds with us in countless ways and to astonishing results, and yet we are not permitted to share Her secret. Our petty brains and bodies are but mere implements of sorts in Her hands whereby She is constructing something, the significance or purpose of which we cannot even guess and which She is at no pains to reveal. She builds us to contain, or rather to comprehend, but a modicum, a minute fragment, of the enormous information or secret which is Hers. Secrecy on Her part, you see.
If one turns to the pages of science, what a masterly array of natural diplomacy and artifice is there displayed! The fishes of the sea imitating the coloring of the grasses or shadows of the deep in which they hide and by means of which they escape their enemies (protective coloring is the scientific name); insects the same, in so far as foliage and grasses are concerned; birds the same; reptiles the same; man, for all his noble theories and dreams of a generous and unselfish mode of conduct, the same; as artificial and secretive as any, he. The stripling lawyer imitates the look and manner of his intellectual superior—words, phrases, carriage, side-whiskers even—in order to seem his equal, or in other words to conceal (secrecy, you see) the fact that he is not his equal, from some trusting and unsophisticated client. Protective coloring, as it were.
Take again the instance of a man beginning to rise financially and wishing to appear the equivalent of men far richer than himself. His office is in their vicinity, his residence in their neighborhood. He is in their club if possible, their church, their directories. He is not as rich as they are, but wishes to conceal the fact. It is not good for the world to know that he is not what he is not. His few public deeds would not be as acceptable or he would be compelled to doff the uniform he so much desires to wear, the manners, along possibly with the emoluments thereof, or the hope of them. Secrecy—secrecy—secrecy. A seeming only, where reality would leave life bare and hard.
And is it not the same with doctors, merchants, professionals of all kinds? To this day is not medicine, like most other professions, fond of mystery and secrecy.... Latin for instance, in preparing its prescriptions, thereby giving them an air of superiority which is not necessarily there at all, or to prevent the patient from knowing what is being put into his stomach, or to make the cure seem more formidable by being mysterious or secret. And to this hour, lawyers delighting in magnificently darksome briefs, which in simple language would be understandable to all and far less fearsome. Again, religion, the Catholic and many other versions, rejoicing in a ritual which, if presented or sung in English, would be just as impressive to the really intelligent if it possessed any genuine merit or appeal. But to the ignorant laity, according to the thoughts of the churchman, it might not be; hence the Latin. And perhaps it is as it should be, for do not the ignorant and the savage invariably crave that which they cannot understand? It may be that they desire something more symbolic of all they feel but cannot express, a quantity and quality of mysterious inner moods and emotions which no human spoken words, especially those of their own tongue, would even suggest.
Hence the priest and preacher, Shi’ite or Sunnite, Dervish, Buddhist, or Brahman formalist, one and all, although ordinary human beings like ourselves, are trained, and most carefully, in the protective coloring of their profession. For essentially they are no different, or, with very rare exception, no more spiritual, no more self-sacrificial—in other words, no more unnatural—than any of their fellows. But, in due process of time, the manners, customs, rules even of those who by chance or peradventure (the accident of disposition or revulsion from too much of something else) have been tender, self-sacrificial, humanitarian, have given these latter their cue. They now know, let us say, what “good” or self-restraining or humanity-loving men and women in times past have, at one time and another, been like, how they walked in humility, denied themselves the pleasures, even the necessities of life, divided a cloak with a beggar or gave it whole, went with an importunate enemy two miles instead of one, turned the other cheek to one who had smitten them on one, gave the last of money or food to one who was hungered, shelter to the shelterless, warmth to the cold, ignored frivolity or laughter because of so much existing misery. And so those who, without performing similar discomforting services, would like to appear thus, now know what to do, how such an one, assuming that he minister to the weak, the erring, the deficient, should conduct himself, his most appropriate airs, manners, moods. Hence—but does one need to call attention to the vast system of protective coloring which now produces saviors, samaritans, ministers by the hundreds of thousands throughout the world, all presumably embracing the qualities which make the self-sacrificial character important, if it is important, yet who perform few if any of those deeds which the coloring implies: the “cloth,” the hats, the reversed collars, the severe black, sign of abstemiousness, self-sacrifice, putting aside of the vanities, shows and pleasures of this world.
Of course there is always the rare individual born so strong, so wise, so courageous, that he needs few if any disguises in order to make life palatable to him, or his way in it. But he is rare, and, even when present, may not always proceed with ease or fearlessly but must disguise the courage and intelligence which he possesses (secrecy). Even he, when dealing with weaker, as well as stronger, individuals and groups, dare not show forth his true strength, save in their behalf, unless he would evoke their destroying anger. For masses, lacking power as to their individual units, are infuriated by one who is not so constituted, who offends by his strength their own futility. All lesser strengths, whether represented by individuals or masses, are envious and jealous of power. And the strong hate the strong quite as much as they do the weak when the latter are opposed to them. And, vice versa, the weak look upon the strong as driving masters, but the strong look upon the strong as rivals seeking power equal to their own, or equal to the task of displacing them. Hence their bitter and destructive rage; the hate of tiger for tiger, for instance, bull for bull. Secrecy, secrecy, here as elsewhere apparently the best policy Nature has been able to devise the only or the essential one, the one most employed. Truly the wise, however powerful, disguise their power and wisdom. They go softly, speak kindly, advocate justice or equation in all things, as well they may, seeing that they themselves may stand in need of it at any turn; and, if they work their will, work it in the dark and alone as much as possible.
What, then, shall we say of life when confronted by truths such as these—that it is offensive, unbearable, a thing to be wept over, shunned, departed from as quickly as possible? I think not. Nature has always been so, and men for millions of years have undertaken life with all its difficulties and subtleties and have done well enough. Indeed, they have thrived, like all those who sharpen their souls against difficulty. It is Nature’s way. With steel She cuts steel, with subtlety subtlety, and the whole process appears to be one in which a more capable device for enduring the inherent restlessness and changefulness of Nature Herself is steadily prepared. It is one of dull wit upon whom, like barnacles, illusions fasten. And he is in error who assumes that the processes of Nature are different from those of man. We are like life, like the chemicals and forces of which we are composed, and have always been so. Only theory and dogma, growing upon and obscuring sluggish minds, have permitted the rise of a contra-conception. We should brush the cobwebs from our eyes and do away with illusion. In so far as possible, and as did the gladiators of old, we should face life with such weapons as we may, some with raw strength and short sword and shield, others with net and trident; one relying on brute strength if need must, the other on the skill and craft with which he may enmesh and slay. There is no other way. Life is so, and only the cowardly or the dull or the weak will either fail to see or endeavor to evade so solemn and even terrible a truth.