Sixth Meeting
I began by reading the children’s papers. Virginia wrote the following:
“Some people have the idea that to pray means to fall upon one’s knees, fold one’s hands, lift one’s eyes to heaven, and mutter some words one doesn’t understand, sometimes in a foreign tongue. I don’t agree with them. Unconscious prayer is the only true prayer; at least, so I believe. In a great crisis a man does not go on his knees, or, if he does, he is not praying what he is saying, which is a mere parrot-cry. His prayer is what he is thinking, and what is in his heart.
“Many people say a prayer every night. In most cases this is not a true prayer, but still it brings peace and calmness, and it is lovely to be in a calm state before going to sleep. I think the reason for this is that the person who prays before going to sleep thinks himself so virtuous that he is at peace with the whole world. Then again, the person who goes to church every time he commits a sin, and prays for forgiveness, becomes careless of the wrong he does. For can he not pray and be forgiven without the least trouble?”
We had a good laugh over Virginia’s idea of prayer, which seemed to be chiefly her idea of other people’s prayer.
Then I read Henry’s paper:
“Every man must decide for himself whether or not he shall pray, for no one else can tell him, since it is a matter of feeling. If a man is relieved by prayer, then let him pray; but if he only prays from habit, he is doing wrong.
“We must not expect that our prayers will be answered by that superior power which we call God, for this will only happen when we make up our minds to gain our end, and put our heart and spirit in the work. There is a saying, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
“Some people like to put their prayers in words, while others like to think them and feel them. Still others like to put out of their minds for a time all earthly troubles, and just think of and feel that kindness and sympathy for their fellow man; and to think of the great spiritual questions which should have such great influence on the lives of everybody, and in this way let that spirit within them get complete control of them, and that is their way of praying.
“No one can say which way is the right way, but if you do it in that way which does you the most good, for you it will be the right way.”
Henry said he thought kneeling, and the attitude of prayer, were a “pretty” custom. They were the attitude of supplication. I questioned whether the best “prayer” was a supplication, said I did not like the word “prayer” for that reason. Virginia said she thought we often “felt” a supplication, even if we did not pray nor expect an answer.
Marian had tried to get the “prayer-feeling” each night last week, but had not succeeded. She could not get calm, but thought of everything under the sun, and then fell asleep.
Virginia said: “You can’t make your mind a blank.”
I answered: “Making your mind a blank is not prayer.”
Henry thought it good to consider our spiritual problems just before going to sleep, and so get into the right state of mind. Ruth agreed.
Now I read Marian’s paper:
“At a meeting of the Seekers on November 8th, we discussed the subject of Prayer. Prayer is really a feeling. When we feel truly in harmony with our inner and our bigger self, the feeling we have is prayer. Prayer can be made a source of strength. If we find some way to get into the prayer-feeling every day or at night, it will be a great help to us. As we reached a conclusion on this subject very soon, we began a discussion on Immortality, which we expect to finish next week.”
Now we spoke of immortality. Although the six of us believed in it, by trying to convince Alfred we might gain much.
I asked why, or whether, it was important to have an opinion concerning immortality.
Marian said it was important for us to know, because we were interested, because we cared so much. I answered, that was one reason, and then there was another. Ruth said the other reason was that we acted according to our ideas of death, that it influenced our morality.
“Yes,” I answered, “we live according to our expectations. Think of how the false or true ideas of a future life influenced morality in ages past, of the morals, good and bad, which sprang from the idea of heaven and hell! Alfred, do you think it is important to know?”
“Yes,” said he, “it is important; but I can’t come to any conclusion. I am not convinced.”
Some people feel sure one cannot know anything about immortality, and that therefore it is not worth thinking of it at all.
Henry said: “Because one does not know a thing now is no reason why one should not try to find out. And I believe we shall know, some time. If people had felt so about other equally difficult things, we would never have got on.”
I said: “What is knowledge? We cannot know immortality as an experience, through our senses; but I believe we can know through our reason, just as so much other scientific knowledge is a matter of reason, of analogy, of deduction. It can’t be proved, as one might prove that two and two are four. But then I once read in a book that nothing could be proved, except the things not worth proving.
“If we saw a red rose, and we all called it a red rose, there would be no doubt of its redness. But if we differed, and some called it red, some pink, some yellow, we should soon be in grave doubt. Our eyes might be wrong. There have been so many opinions regarding immortality, because people had different ‘eyes,’ that now we are full of doubts.”
We spoke of the time when the earth was thought flat because it looked flat.
Alfred said: “Immortality of what, do you mean?”
“Immortality of everything,” I answered. “We might, of course, believe that the universe will die, will be extinct. But it is an unthinkable thought. We all believe in something eternal. We know that force does not die, but is changed and transmitted; we know that no substance is destroyed; we know that every action, every circumstance has endless consequences and endless antecedents. They—and I—are forever a part of the universe. How could we be destroyed? Why should we think that everything is immortal, excepting self, which seems the motive force?”
Alfred said: “I don’t believe it is destroyed; but it goes out of me, and that is the end of me.”
The others asked how Alfred could have agreed with us all so far, and not agree now, since it seemed to them that what we had said before, the idea of progress, implied immortality. How could he believe in the Self as God, the vast Self which comes to complete understanding, and yet believe that he, who was a part of it, that in him, and he in that, could be utterly destroyed?
He said he believed new self was always coming into the universe, and old self going out.
“Where would it come from, where would it go?” asked Virginia.
I said: “There is nothing but the universe. Everything is in it.”
He answered that he believed in progress, progress toward unity and understanding, but it passed from one person to another; it would not be himself.
“How could the whole of Self be complete unless you were there?” I asked.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t see how it could be. It would not be myself.”
“No, not you, in any definite sense, but self, and yourself in that. But it does not matter whether you disagree, if you can really go onward with us, and believe with us, without believing you are immortal. For all that matters is how we live now. It is not necessary to know the future, unless you need it for the present. When I say ‘immortal’ I mean we are immortal, now, because the universe is here.”
Ruth thought that life would be meaningless if we were not immortal; that all progress, all goodness would have no sense. She said: “One might live to do good, just to be kind to others, who were also mortal. But if that were the end, there would be no meaning in it.”
Henry agreed with her, and most of the others expressed similar ideas. I said this did not prove we were immortal. But I, too, felt a limited life to be meaningless. Still, I wanted to know the truth.
Alfred saw he could not consistently believe in race immortality, but he wanted to.
Virginia said: “You know the sun will burn down some time. Every fire burns itself out. Then the world will get cold and dark. And then what becomes of the human race?”
“But,” I said, “the energy that was the sun will be in the universe, and will light other suns.”
“Energy never dies,” said Virginia. “If I put out my arm like this,” and she stretched forth her hand, “the energy that goes out from me never dies. It bounds and rebounds, and in some way goes on forever.”
“As it has been forever until now,” I said.
“No, I think it dies out,” said Alfred. “If you bounce a ball, it bounds and rebounds and then stops.”
I explained to him how energy is not destroyed, but transmitted; how nothing is ever destroyed, but all things are changed.
He believed the physical part changed and was not destroyed. Still, it was not life any more.
He said: “It is not the same thing. I am myself now, but I am not the same person I was as a little child. I am all changed.”
“Yes,” I answered him, “your body is different material, your brain and your thoughts are not the same, your shape is changed, but you are still self, and you were self then.”
“But when I die, where will I be?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I know that somehow you must be.”
Virginia and Alfred—in fact, all the children—had a long discussion. Alfred said, in speaking of a horse which had been buried in the woods, and over which ferns had grown, “but the ferns were not the horse”—a sensible remark. He said: “When you move your hand, the energy that goes onward is not the hand. And so, when I die, the self that goes out of me may be a force, but it will go out of me, it will not be I.”
“But you yourself,” I said, “are the life, the force, the self, which goes forth, which moves all things.”
Here the children, being left to themselves, went up into thin air. They argued the possibility of nothingness. Virginia told how when she was a little child she used to imagine what would happen if there were no earth. They each described how they couldn’t imagine nothing, and what happened when they tried. Ruth told how one couldn’t imagine perfect unity and understanding, either. I stopped them, and said it made not the least difference in any fact whether they could or couldn’t imagine it. Virginia, the little artist and mystic, said she thought in childhood one touched the truth unconsciously. The others all denied this. I said it was a pleasant and comfortable thought.
Now I said there was one other interesting thing I wanted to speak of, and that was memory. Most people believe we remember nothing from before birth. This is not true. Our whole body, our very being, is a memory. Florence said: “It is a race memory. Often we find it easy to do a thing we never did before, because our ancestors did it.”
“Yes,” I answered, “instinct is a memory. The fact that we are here at all, our minds, our thinking, as well as our bodies, are a memory. We ourselves, our present bodies, are a consequence of the lives before us, a memory from the endless past.”
“We are what they lived,” said Ruth, “as our bodies shall be what we live, not what we think on the surface, but what we live.”
“Yes,” I answered, “but after a while we do live our thoughts.”
Henry said life was a repetition with progress. “But in the one-celled animal,” he asked, “was life an expression of mind?”
“I don’t know,” I said; “but it seems to me self or will must be at the bottom of all motion. I read a theory lately, in an ‘evolution’ book, that was very interesting. It is this: That consciousness or desire is the source of all development, and that lower creatures are conscious of acts which to us are automatic. The lowest creature, which is a mere bag or stomach, would then be conscious of itself, whereas in us the consciousness of primal organs is swamped and lost in our more intense nervous consciousness. Thus, from the first, consciousness and will might be the source of progress, as they are now.”[2]
They all thought it a plausible and interesting theory. Marian said:
“It seems likely. For do not babies have difficulty in walking, and are conscious of every step, whereas we do it almost automatically?”
“Yes,” I said; “it might be the same with the race.”
I insisted that one could know the truth in certain directions, if one were willing to admit absolute ignorance in others. I felt sure I was immortal, but I had not the least idea how. I would not build up a heaven, hell or universe of the dead, because all these conjectures were likely to be false. I said one could know much and learn more only by admitting one’s limitations.
Of course one could not know, I said, but I myself did not believe in personal immortality with definite memory. It might be so, or it might not.
“I think it is not so,” said Marian, “for we remember nothing definite from before birth.”
“But,” I said, “I feel sure that memory, the essence of memory, will go on; just as our bodies and selves are a memory, so whatever we are in this life will have its consequences, and we will be forever according to what we are now. All progress is a memory—and a prophecy.”
I spoke, too, of the endless stream of every least action, how the least word, once spoken, is a spring of eternal consequence, how each moment is tremendously important. I reminded Marian how she had once said school was so short, it did not much matter what one did; and I had answered her, all life was short.
“Some people think actions under certain conditions—in foreign lands, for instance—do not count.”
Virginia said she lived to enjoy herself, no matter what death might be, but her enjoyment included making others happy. I said, that was the only good way to live, to enjoy oneself, and have a very big idea of what enjoyment meant.
In talking we stumbled across difficult, confusing words, “God,” “truth,” “eternity.” Ruth said: “We ought to invent a new language, a code of symbols, for everything in the old language has so many acquired meanings, is so used up.”
“We have made almost a code of our own,” said Marian.
Alfred had said nothing to let me know whether or not he had been convinced of immortality. It will be interesting to hear what he has thought during the week.
We had now finished the first and fundamental part of what we meant to do; we would now test everything by that standard.
“It is strange,” said Marian, “how everything we have said has sprung from just one thing.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“Our idea of God,” she answered.
I said that, according to my prediction, we scarcely found it necessary to use the word God.
Marian answered: “It is because the word has so many meanings, is so easily misunderstood. But we know what we mean without saying it. My Sunday-school teacher said God took a personal interest in each one. I don’t believe that,” she went on, “except as we are in ourselves, and take an interest in ourselves. That idea of hers puts God, as it were, outside and apart.”
I questioned Ruth concerning Christian Science. She said our idea corresponded altogether with hers; it was the application which would probably differ, and we had not yet spoken of that. “We will do so now,” I answered. I asked the others if they would not like to have Ruth speak, in a meeting later on, of Christian Science. They all said that they would like it.
Next we will consider art, creative genius, in relation to our idea. I was glad the children agreed with me in preferring this to moral disputations. I said I thought the longer we waited to speak of moral questions, the larger view we would take of them. I wanted to avoid pettiness.
Our subject for next week grew naturally out of this week’s talk. I said: “As a drop of water can be a sphere as perfect as the suns and planets, so each smallest thing, if it be perfect in itself, typifies the universe. You must realize that in an infinite universe there is really no such thing as size.”
“There is only comparative size,” said Virginia.
“Yes,” I answered; “and it is with this idea in mind that I wish to consider beauty, and the definite separate creation. I shall want to know next week what each of you means by beauty, or thinks beautiful.”
Marian—thinking of the personal side immediately—said: “I think it’s because most people are homely, that we think some beautiful.”
We were amused at that. I said I did not mean personal beauty in particular. Then they asked, did I mean artistic beauty? I meant beauty in anything. I would want to know what made certain things seem beautiful to us.
Virginia said: “I think there is nothing so beautiful as taking a deep, deep breath. That brings beautiful thoughts into my head, and makes everything right.”
This remark did not seem pertinent to any of us. Virginia insisted, too, that she thought a man was an artist, even if he could not express himself; that to have artistic thoughts made one an artist. I answered, it might be so; work itself was not good art unless it was a good expression, no matter what the artist might be. Virginia explained: “I mean an artist is more interesting than his work, sometimes.”
Florence said: “A beautiful thing—in art—is a complete thing, complete and perfect in itself.”
“I don’t think so,” answered Virginia. “If you were to sketch a tree—without finishing it at all—and that sketch were your whole idea of the tree as you saw it, then it would be no sketch, but a finished picture. A thing is a sketch until you have altogether expressed your idea. But then, no matter how sketchy it may look, it is finished.”
I had to interpret Florence to Virginia. I said: “Florence did not mean completeness in the sense of exactness. She meant that the tree, no matter how indicated, must seem to us so complete, in a world of its own, as to leave nothing lacking or intruding; that everything in the picture is there in relation to the tree, and the whole makes a perfect little world. If there were suggestions of other things which had nothing to do with the tree, such as there always are in life, it would not be a perfect picture. You said it must be a complete expression of the artist’s thought. That is just the completeness Florence means. It must be a complete, self-sufficient harmonious vision of a tree. And harmony means wholeness, doesn’t it?”
“For instance,” said Florence, “even the smallest and most trivial poem would be beautiful if it were perfect in itself—and complete. Take Leigh Hunt’s ‘Jenny Kissed Me,’ such a little thing, and yet beautiful, telling the delights of a kiss. And then take ‘Faust,’ which is much larger and deeper; and yet each is perfect in its way, though ‘Faust’ expresses so much more.”
“Have you read ‘Faust’?” I answered her.
“No,” she said, “but I know all about it.” I knew that she had got her ideas ready-made from “brother Arthur,” and I was amused. But I did not wish to be hurried into the midst of my subject without beginning at the beginning, so I cut the discussion as short as might be.
Marian said: “I don’t understand what they mean.”
I told her she would understand when we had talked it over, that I only wanted her, before next week, to settle her own ideas as to what she thought beautiful.
Florence repeated: “Beauty is completeness.”
“I think,” said Marian, “I begin to see what Florence means by that. Like the drop of water.”
I like to suggest the subject for the following week at the close of each meeting, and, if possible, to speak enough of it to give them a starting-place for their thoughts.
[2]
Cope’s theory, in “Darwinism To-day,” Kellog, p. 287.