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Fantasia Of The Unconscious
By
D. H. Lawrence
CONTENTS
Contents
CHAPTER
III - PLEXUSES, PLANES AND SO ON..
CHAPTER
IV - TREES AND BABIES AND PAPAS AND MAMAS.
CHAPTER
VI - FIRST GLIMMERINGS OF MIND
CHAPTER
VII - FIRST STEPS IN EDUCATION
CHAPTER
VIII - EDUCATION AND SEX IN MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD..
CHAPTER
XII - LITANY OF EXHORTATIONS
CHAPTER
XIV - SLEEP AND DREAMS
=
The
present book is a continuation from "Psychoanalysis and the Unconsciou=
s."
The generality of readers had better just leave it alone. The generality of
critics likewise. I really don't want to convince anybody. It is quite in
opposition to my whole nature. I don't intend my books for the generality of
readers. I count it a mistake of our mistaken democracy, that every man who=
can
read print is allowed to believe that he can read all that is printed. I co=
unt
it a misfortune that serious books are exposed in the public market, like s=
laves
exposed naked for sale. But there we are, since we live in an age of mistak=
en
democracy, we must go through with it.
I warn the generality of readers, that this
present book will seem to them only a rather more revolting mass of wordy
nonsense than the last. I would warn the generality of critics to throw it =
in
the waste paper basket without more ado.
As for the limited few, in whom one must perfo=
rce
find an answerer, I may as well say straight off that I stick to the solar
plexus. That statement alone, I hope, will thin their numbers considerably.=
Finally, to the remnants of a remainder, in or=
der
to apologize for the sudden lurch into cosmology, or cosmogony, in this boo=
k, I
wish to say that the whole thing hangs inevitably together. I am not a
scientist. I am an amateur of amateurs. As one of my critics said, you eith=
er believe
or you don't.
I am not a proper archæologist nor an
anthropologist nor an ethnologist. I am no "scholar" of any sort.=
But
I am very grateful to scholars for their sound work. I have found hints,
suggestions for what I say here in all kinds of scholarly books, from the Y=
oga
and Plato and St. John the Evangel and the early Greek philosophers like He=
rakleitos
down to Fraser and his "Golden Bough," and even Freud and Frobeni=
us.
Even then I only remember hints--and I proceed by intuition. This leaves you
quite free to dismiss the whole wordy mass of revolting nonsense, without a
qualm.
Only let me say, that to my mind there is a gr=
eat
field of science which is as yet quite closed to us. I refer to the science
which proceeds in terms of life and is established on data of living experi=
ence
and of sure intuition. Call it subjective science if you like. Our objective
science of modern knowledge concerns itself only with phenomena, and with
phenomena as regarded in their cause-and-effect relationship. I have nothin=
g to
say against our science. It is perfect as far as it goes. But to regard it =
as exhausting
the whole scope of human possibility in knowledge seems to me just puerile.=
Our
science is a science of the dead world. Even biology never considers life, =
but
only mechanistic functioning and apparatus of life.
I honestly think that the great pagan world of
which Egypt and Greece were the last living terms, the great pagan world wh=
ich
preceded our own era once, had a vast and perhaps perfect science of its ow=
n, a
science in terms of life. In our era this science crumbled into magic and
charlatanry. But even wisdom crumbles.
I believe that this great science previous to =
ours
and quite different in constitution and nature from our science once was
universal, established all over the then-existing globe. I believe it was e=
soteric,
invested in a large priesthood. Just as mathematics and mechanics and physi=
cs
are defined and expounded in the same way in the universities of China or
Bolivia or London or Moscow to-day, so, it seems to me, in the great world
previous to ours a great science and cosmology were taught esoterically in =
all
countries of the globe, Asia, Polynesia, America, Atlantis and Europe. Belt=
's
suggestion of the geographical nature of this previous world seems to me mo=
st interesting.
In the period which geologists call the Glacial Period, the waters of the e=
arth
must have been gathered up in a vast body on the higher places of our globe,
vast worlds of ice. And the sea-beds of to-day must have been comparatively
dry. So that the Azores rose up mountainous from the plain of Atlantis, whe=
re
the Atlantic now washes, and the Easter Isles and the Marquesas and the rest
rose lofty from the marvelous great continent of the Pacific.
In that world men lived and taught and knew, a=
nd
were in one complete correspondence over all the earth. Men wandered back a=
nd
forth from Atlantis to the Polynesian Continent as men now sail from Europe=
to America.
The interchange was complete, and knowledge, science was universal over the
earth, cosmopolitan as it is to-day.
Then came the melting of the glaciers, and the
world flood. The refugees from the drowned continents fled to the high plac=
es
of America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Isles. And some degenerated natur=
ally
into cave men, neolithic and paleolithic creatures, and some retained their
marvelous innate beauty and life-perfection, as the South Sea Islanders, and
some wandered savage in Africa, and some, like Druids or Etruscans or Chald=
eans
or Amerindians or Chinese, refused to forget, but taught the old wisdom, on=
ly
in its half-forgotten, symbolic forms. More or less forgotten, as knowledge=
: remembered
as ritual, gesture, and myth-story.
And so, the intense potency of symbols is part=
at
least memory. And so it is that all the great symbols and myths which domin=
ate
the world when our history first begins, are very much the same in every
country and every people, the great myths all relate to one another. And so=
it is
that these myths now begin to hypnotize us again, our own impulse towards o=
ur
own scientific way of understanding being almost spent. And so, besides myt=
hs,
we find the same mathematic figures, cosmic graphs which remain among the
aboriginal peoples in all continents, mystic figures and signs whose true
cosmic or scientific significance is lost, yet which continue in use for
purposes of conjuring or divining.
If my reader finds this bosh and abracadabra, =
all
right for him. Only I have no more regard for his little crowings on his own
little dunghill. Myself, I am not so sure that I am one of the one-and-onli=
es.
I like the wide world of centuries and vast ages--mammoth worlds beyond our
day, and mankind so wonderful in his distances, his history that has no
beginning yet always the pomp and the magnificence of human splendor unfold=
ing
through the earth's changing periods. Floods and fire and convulsions and
ice-arrest intervene between the great glamorous civilizations of mankind. =
But nothing
will ever quench humanity and the human potentiality to evolve something
magnificent out of a renewed chaos.
I do not believe in evolution, but in the
strangeness and rainbow-change of ever-renewed creative civilizations.
So much, then, for my claim to remarkable
discoveries. I believe I am only trying to stammer out the first terms of a
forgotten knowledge. But I have no desire to revive dead kings, or dead sag=
es.
It is not for me to arrange fossils, and decipher hieroglyphic phrases. I c=
ouldn't
do it if I wanted to. But then I can do something else. The soul must take =
the
hint from the relics our scientists have so marvelously gathered out of the
forgotten past, and from the hint develop a new living utterance. The spark=
is
from dead wisdom, but the fire is life.
And as an example--a very simple one--of how a
scientist of the most innocent modern sort may hint at truths which, when
stated, he would laugh at as fantastic nonsense, let us quote a word from t=
he
already old-fashioned "Golden Bough." "It must have appeared=
to
the ancient Aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from the fire whi=
ch resided
in the sacred oak."
Exactly. The fire which resided in the Tree of
Life. That is, life itself. So we must read: "It must have appeared to=
the
ancient Aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from life."--Whi=
ch
is what the early Greek philosophers were always saying. And which still se=
ems
to me the real truth, the clue to the cosmos. Instead of life being drawn f=
rom
the sun, it is the emanation from life itself, that is, from all the living
plants and creatures which nourish the sun.
Of course, my dear critic, the ancient Aryans =
were
just doddering--the old duffers: or babbling, the babes. But as for me, I h=
ave
some respect for my ancestors, and believe they had more up their sleeve th=
an
just the marvel of the unborn me.
One last weary little word. This pseudo-philos=
ophy
of mine--"pollyanalytics," as one of my respected critics might
say--is deduced from the novels and poems, not the reverse. The novels and
poems come unwatched out of one's pen. And then the absolute need which one=
has
for some sort of satisfactory mental attitude towards oneself and things in=
general
makes one try to abstract some definite conclusions from one's experiences =
as a
writer and as a man. The novels and poems are pure passionate experience. T=
hese
"pollyanalytics" are inferences made afterwards, from the experie=
nce.
And finally, it seems to me that even art is
utterly dependent on philosophy: or if you prefer it, on a metaphysic. The
metaphysic or philosophy may not be anywhere very accurately stated and may=
be
quite unconscious, in the artist, yet it is a metaphysic that governs men a=
t the
time, and is by all men more or less comprehended, and lived. Men live and =
see
according to some gradually developing and gradually withering vision. This
vision exists also as a dynamic idea or metaphysic--exists first as such. T=
hen
it is unfolded into life and art. Our vision, our belief, our metaphysic is
wearing woefully thin, and the art is wearing absolutely threadbare. We hav=
e no
future; neither for our hopes nor our aims nor our art. It has all gone gra=
y and
opaque.
We've got to rip the old veil of a vision acro=
ss,
and find what the heart really believes in, after all: and what the heart
really wants, for the next future. And we've got to put it down in terms of
belief and of knowledge. And then go forward again, to the fulfillment in l=
ife
and art.
Rip the veil of the old vision across, and walk
through the rent. And if I try to do this--well, why not? If I try to write
down what I see--why not? If a publisher likes to print the book--all right.
And if anybody wants to read it, let him. But why anybody should read one s=
ingle
word if he doesn't want to, I don't see. Unless of course he is a critic who
needs to scribble a dollar's worth of words, no matter how.
TAORMINA
October 8, 1921
FANTASIA
OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
=
Let us
start by making a little apology to Psychoanalysis. It wasn't fair to jeer =
at
the psychoanalytic unconscious; or perhaps it was fair to jeer at the
psychoanalytic unconscious, which is truly a negative quantity and an
unpleasant menagerie. What was really not fair was to jeer at Psychoanalysi=
s as
if Freud had invented and described nothing but an unconscious, in all his
theory.
The unconscious is not, of course, the clue to=
the
Freudian theory. The real clue is sex. A sexual motive is to be attributed =
to
all human activity.
Now this is going too far. We are bound to adm=
it
than an element of sex enters into all human activity. But so does an eleme=
nt
of greed, and of many other things. We are bound to admit that into all hum=
an relationships,
particularly adult human relationships, a large element of sex enters. We a=
re
thankful that Freud has insisted on this. We are thankful that Freud pulled=
us
somewhat to earth, out of all our clouds of superfineness. What Freud says =
is
always partly true. And half a loaf is better than no bread.
But really, there is the other half of the loa=
f. All
is not sex. And a sexual motive is not to be attributed to all human
activities. We know it, without need to argue.
Sex surely has a specific meaning. Sex means t=
he
being divided into male and female; and the magnetic desire or impulse which
puts male apart from female, in a negative or sundering magnetism, but whic=
h also
draws male and female together in a long and infinitely varied approach tow=
ards
the critical act of coition. Sex without the consummating act of coition is
never quite sex, in human relationships: just as a eunuch is never quite a =
man.
That is to say, the act of coition is the essential clue to sex.
Now does all life work up to the one consummat=
ing
act of coition? In one direction, it does, and it would be better if
psychoanalysis plainly said so. In one direction, all life works up to the =
one supreme
moment of coition. Let us all admit it, sincerely.
But we are not confined to one direction only,=
or
to one exclusive consummation. Was the building of the cathedrals a working=
up
towards the act of coition? Was the dynamic impulse sexual? No. The sexual =
element
was present, and important. But not predominant. The same in the building of
the Panama Canal. The sexual impulse, in its widest form, was a very great
impulse towards the building of the Panama Canal. But there was something e=
lse,
of even higher importance, and greater dynamic power.
And what is this other, greater impulse? It is=
the
desire of the human male to build a world: not "to build a world for y=
ou,
dear"; but to build up out of his own self and his own belief and his =
own
effort something wonderful. Not merely something useful. Something wonderfu=
l. Even
the Panama Canal would never have been built simply to let ships through. I=
t is
the pure disinterested craving of the human male to make something wonderfu=
l,
out of his own head and his own self, and his own soul's faith and delight,
which starts everything going. This is the prime motivity. And the motivity=
of
sex is subsidiary to this: often directly antagonistic.
That is, the essentially religious or creative
motive is the first motive for all human activity. The sexual motive comes
second. And there is a great conflict between the interests of the two, at =
all times.
What we want to do, is to trace the creative or
religious motive to its source in the human being, keeping in mind always t=
he
near relationship between the religious motive and the sexual. The two great
impulses are like man and wife, or father and son. It is no use putting one
under the feet of the other.
The great desire to-day is to deny the religio=
us
impulse altogether, or else to assert its absolute alienity from the sexual
impulse. The orthodox religious world says faugh! to sex. Whereupon we thank
Freud for giving them tit for tat. But the orthodox scientific world says f=
ie!
to the religious impulse. The scientist wants to discover a cause for
everything. And there is no cause for the religious impulse. Freud is with =
the
scientists. Jung dodges from his university gown into a priest's surplice t=
ill
we don't know where we are. We prefer Freud's Sex to Jung's Libido or Bergs=
on's
Elan Vital. Sex has at least some definite reference, though when Freud mak=
es
sex accountable for everything he as good as makes it accountable for nothi=
ng.
We refuse any Cause, whether it be Sex or Libi=
do
or Elan Vital or ether or unit of force or perpetuum mobile or anything els=
e.
But also we feel that we cannot, like Moses, perish on the top of our prese=
nt
ideal Pisgah, or take the next step into thin air. There we are, at the top=
of
our Pisgah of ideals, crying Excelsior and trying to clamber up into the
clouds: that is, if we are idealists with the religious impulse rampant in =
our
breasts. If we are scientists we practice aeroplane flying or eugenics or
disarmament or something equally absurd.
The promised land, if it be anywhere, lies away
beneath our feet. No more prancing upwards. No more uplift. No more little
Excelsiors crying world-brotherhood and international love and Leagues of N=
ations.
Idealism and materialism amount to the same thing on top of Pisgah, and the
space is very crowded. We're all cornered on our mountain top, climbing up =
one
another and standing on one another's faces in our scream of Excelsior.
To your tents, O Israel! Brethren, let us go d=
own.
We will descend. The way to our precious Canaan lies obviously downhill. An=
end
of uplift. Downhill to the land of milk and honey. The blood will soon be f=
lowing
faster than either, but we can't help that. We can't help it if Canaan has
blood in its veins, instead of pure milk and honey.
If it is a question of origins, the origin is
always the same, whatever we say about it. So is the cause. Let that be a
comfort to us. If we want to talk about God, well, we can please ourselves.=
God
has been talked about quite a lot, and He doesn't seem to mind. Why we shou=
ld
take it so personally is a problem. Likewise if we wish to have a tea party
with the atom, let us: or with the wriggling little unit of energy, or the
ether, or the Libido, or the Elan Vital, or any other Cause. Only don't let=
us
have sex for tea. We've all got too much of it under the table; and really,=
for
my part, I prefer to keep mine there, no matter what the Freudians say about
me.
But it is tiring to go to any more tea parties
with the Origin, or the Cause, or even the Lord. Let us pronounce the mystic
Om, from the pit of the stomach, and proceed.
There's not a shadow of doubt about it, the Fi=
rst
Cause is just unknowable to us, and we'd be sorry if it wasn't. Whether it's
God or the Atom. All I say is Om!
The first business of every faith is to declare
its ignorance. I don't know where I come from--nor where I exit to. I don't
know the origins of life nor the goal of death. I don't know how the two pa=
rent
cells which are my biological origin became the me which I am. I don't in t=
he
least know what those two parent cells were. The chemical analysis is just a
farce, and my father and mother were just vehicles. And yet, I must say, si=
nce
I've got to know about the two cells, I'm glad I do know.
The Moses of Science and the Aaron of Idealism
have got the whole bunch of us here on top of Pisgah. It's a tight squeeze,=
and
we'll be falling very, very foul of one another in five minutes, unless som=
e of
us climb down. But before leaving our eminence let us have a look round, and
get our bearings.
They say that way lies the New Jerusalem of
universal love: and over there the happy valley of indulgent Pragmatism: and
there, quite near, is the chirpy land of the Vitalists: and in those dark
groves the home of successful Analysis, surnamed Psycho: and over those blue
hills the Supermen are prancing about, though you can't see them. And there=
is Besantheim,
and there is Eddyhowe, and there, on that queer little tableland, is Wilson=
ia,
and just round the corner is Rabindranathopolis....
But Lord, I can't see anything. Help me, heave=
n,
to a telescope, for I see blank nothing.
I'm not going to try any more. I'm going to sit
down on my posterior and sluther full speed down this Pisgah, even if it co=
st
me my trouser seat. So ho!--away we go.
In the beginning--there never was any beginnin=
g,
but let it pass. We've got to make a start somehow. In the very beginning of
all things, time and space and cosmos and being, in the beginning of all th=
ese
was a little living creature. But I don't know even if it was little. In the
beginning was a living creature, its plasm quivering and its life-pulse
throbbing. This little creature died, as little creatures always do. But not
before it had had young ones. When the daddy creature died, it fell to piec=
es.
And that was the beginning of the cosmos. Its little body fell down to a sp=
eck
of dust, which the young ones clung to because they must cling to something.
Its little breath flew asunder, the hotness and brightness of the little
beast--I beg your pardon, I mean the radiant energy from the corpse flew aw=
ay to
the right hand, and seemed to shine warm in the air, while the clammy energy
from the body flew away to the left hand, and seemed dark and cold. And so,=
the
first little master was dead and done for, and instead of his little living
body there was a speck of dust in the middle, which became the earth, and on
the right hand was a brightness which became the sun, rampaging with all the
energy that had come out of the dead little master, and on the left hand a
darkness which felt like an unrisen moon. And that was how the Lord created=
the
world. Except that I know nothing about the Lord, so I shouldn't mention it=
.
But I forgot the soul of the little master. It
probably did a bit of flying as well--and then came back to the young ones.=
It
seems most natural that way.
Which is my account of the Creation. And I mea=
n by
it, that Life is not and never was anything but living creatures. That's wh=
at
life is and will be just living creatures, no matter how large you make the=
capital
L. Out of living creatures the material cosmos was made: out of the death of
living creatures, when their little living bodies fell dead and fell asunder
into all sorts of matter and forces and energies, sun, moons, stars and wor=
lds.
So you got the universe. Where you got the living creature from, that first
one, don't ask me. He was just there. But he was a little person with a sou=
l of
his own. He wasn't Life with a capital L.
If you don't believe me, then don't. I'll even
give you a little song to sing.
&=
nbsp;
"If it be not true to me What care I how t=
rue it
be . ."
That's the kind of man I really like, chirping=
his
insouciance. And I chirp back:
&=
nbsp;
"Though it be not true to thee It's gay and gosp=
el
truth to me. . ."
The living live, and then die. They pass away,=
as
we know, to dust and to oxygen and nitrogen and so on. But what we don't kn=
ow,
and what we might perhaps know a little more, is how they pass away direct =
into
life itself--that is, direct into the living. That is, how many dead souls =
fly
over our untidiness like swallows and build under the eaves of the living. =
How
many dead souls, like swallows, twitter and breed thoughts and instincts un=
der
the thatch of my hair and the eaves of my forehead, I don't know. But I bel=
ieve
a good many. And I hope they have a good time. And I hope not too many are
bats.
I am sorry to say I believe in the souls of the
dead. I am almost ashamed to say, that I believe the souls of the dead in s=
ome
way reënter and pervade the souls of the living: so that life is alway=
s the
life of living creatures, and death is always our affair. This bit, I admit=
, is
bordering on mysticism. I'm sorry, because I don't like mysticism. It has no
trousers and no trousers seat: n'a pas de quoi. And I should feel so
uncomfortable if I put my hand behind me and felt an absolute blank.
Meanwhile a long, thin, brown caterpillar keep=
s on
pretending to be a dead thin beech-twig, on a little bough at my feet. He h=
ad
got his hind feet and his fore feet on the twig, and his body looped up lik=
e an
arch in the air between, when a fly walked up the twig and began to mount t=
he
arch of the imitator, not having the least idea that it was on a gentleman's
coat-tails. The caterpillar shook his stern, and the fly made off as if it =
had
seen a ghost. The dead twig and the live twig now remain equally motionless,
enjoying their different ways. And when, with this very pencil, I push the =
head
of the caterpillar off from the twig, he remains on his tail, arched forwar=
d in
air, and oscillating unhappily, like some tiny pendulum ticking. Ticking, t=
icking
in mid-air, arched away from his planted tail. Till at last, after a long
minute and a half, he touches the twig again, and subsides into twigginess.=
The
only thing is, the dead beech-twig can't pretend to be a wagging caterpilla=
r.
Yet how the two commune! However--we have our exits and our entrances, and =
one
man in his time plays many parts. More than he dreams of, poor darling. And=
I
am entirely at a loss for a moral!
Well, then, we are born. I suppose that's a sa=
fe
statement. And we become at once conscious, if we weren't so before. Nem co=
n.
And our little baby body is a little functioning organism, a little develop=
ing machine
or instrument or organ, and our little baby mind begins to stir with all our
wonderful psychical beginnings. And so we are in bud.
But it won't do. It is too much of a Pisgah si=
ght.
We overlook too much. Descendez, cher Moïse. Vous voyez trop loin. You=
see
too far all at once, dear Moses. Too much of a bird's-eye view across the P=
romised
Land to the shore. Come down, and walk across, old fellow. And you won't see
all that milk and honey and grapes the size of duck's eggs. All the dear li=
ttle
budding infant with its tender virginal mind and various clouds of glory
instead of a napkin. Not at all, my dear chap. No such luck of a promised l=
and.
Climb down, Pisgah, and go to Jericho. Allons,
there is no road yet, but we are all Aarons with rods of our own.
=
We are
all very pleased with Mr. Einstein for knocking that eternal axis out of the
universe. The universe isn't a spinning wheel. It is a cloud of bees flying=
and
veering round. Thank goodness for that, for we were getting drunk on the
spinning wheel.
So that now the universe has escaped from the =
pin
which was pushed through it, like an impaled fly vainly buzzing: now that t=
he
multiple universe flies its own complicated course quite free, and hasn't g=
ot any
hub, we can hope also to escape.
We won't be pinned down, either. We have no one
law that governs us. For me there is only one law: I am I. And that isn't a
law, it's just a remark. One is one, but one is not all alone. There are ot=
her stars
buzzing in the center of their own isolation. And there is no straight path
between them. There is no straight path between you and me, dear reader, so
don't blame me if my words fly like dust into your eyes and grit between yo=
ur
teeth, instead of like music into your ears. I am I, but also you are you, =
and
we are in sad need of a theory of human relativity. We need it much more th=
an
the universe does. The stars know how to prowl round one another without mu=
ch
damage done. But you and I, dear reader, in the first conviction that you a=
re
me and that I am you, owing to the oneness of mankind, why, we are always f=
alling
foul of one another, and chewing each other's fur.
You are not me, dear reader, so make no
pretentions to it. Don't get alarmed if I say things. It isn't your sacred
mouth which is opening and shutting. As for the profanation of your sacred
ears, just apply a little theory of relativity, and realize that what I say=
is
not what you hear, but something uttered in the midst of my isolation, and =
arriving
strangely changed and travel-worn down the long curve of your own individual
circumambient atmosphere. I may say Bob, but heaven alone knows what the go=
ose
hears. And you may be sure that a red rag is, to a bull, something far more
mysterious and complicated than a socialist's necktie.
So I hope now I have put you in your place, de=
ar
reader. Sit you like Watts' Hope on your own little blue globe, and I'll si=
t on
mine, and we won't bump into one another if we can help it. You can twang y=
our old
hopeful lyre. It may be music to you, so I don't blame you. It is a terrible
wowing in my ears. But that may be something in my individual atmosphere; s=
ome
strange deflection as your music crosses the space between us. Certainly I
never hear the concert of World Regeneration and Hope Revived Again without
getting a sort of lock-jaw, my teeth go so keen on edge from the twanging
harmony. Still, the world-regenerators may really be quite excellent perfor=
mers
on their own jews'-harps. Blame the edginess of my teeth.
Now I am going to launch words into space so m=
ind
your cosmic eye.
As I said in my small but naturally immortal b=
ook,
"Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious," there's more in it than mee=
ts
the eye. There's more in you, dear reader, than meets the eye. What, don't =
you
believe it? Do you think you're as obvious as a poached egg on a piece of
toast, like the poor lunatic? Not a bit of it, dear reader. You've got a so=
lar
plexus, and a lumbar ganglion not far from your liver, and I'm going to tell
everybody. Nothing brings a man home to himself like telling everybody. And=
I
will drive you home to yourself, do you hear? You've been poaching in my
private atmospheric grounds long enough, identifying yourself with me and me
with everybody. A nice row there'd be in heaven if Aldebaran caught Sirius =
by
the tail and said, "Look here, you're not to look so green, you damm
dog-star! It's an offense against star-regulations."
Which reminds me that the Arabs say the shooti=
ng
stars, meteorites, are starry stones which the angels fling at the poaching
demons whom they catch sight of prowling too near the palisades of heaven. I
must say I like Arab angels. My heaven would coruscate like a catherine whe=
el,
with white-hot star-stones. Away, you dog, you prowling cur.--Got him under=
the
left ear-hole, Gabriel--! See him, see him, Michael? That hopeful blue devi=
l!
Land him one! Biff on your bottom, you hoper.
But I wish the Arabs wouldn't entice me, or yo=
u,
dear reader, provoke me to this. I feel with you, dear reader, as I do with=
a
deaf-man when he pushes his vulcanite ear, his listening machine, towards my
mouth. I want to shout down the telephone ear-hole all kinds of improper th=
ings,
to see what effect they will have on the stupid dear face at the end of the
coil of wire. After all, words must be very different after they've trickled
round and round a long wire coil. Whatever becomes of them! And I, who am a=
bit
deaf myself, and may in the end have a deaf-machine to poke at my friends, =
it
ill becomes me to be so unkind, yet that's how I feel. So there we are.
Help me to be serious, dear reader.
In that little book, "Psychoanalysis and =
the
Unconscious," I tried rather wistfully to convince you, dear reader, t=
hat
you had a solar plexus and a lumbar ganglion and a few other things. I don't
know why I took the trouble. If a fellow doesn't believe he's got a nose, t=
he best
way to convince him is gently to waft a little pepper into his nostrils. And
there was I painting my own nose purple, and wistfully inviting you to look=
and
believe. No more, though.
You've got first and foremost a solar plexus, =
dear
reader; and the solar plexus is a great nerve center which lies behind your
stomach. I can't be accused of impropriety or untruth, because any book of =
science
or medicine which deals with the nerve-system of the human body will show i=
t to
you quite plainly. So don't wriggle or try to look spiritual. Because,
willy-nilly, you've got a solar plexus, dear reader, among other things. I'm
writing a good sound science book, which there's no gainsaying.
Now, your solar plexus, most gentle of readers=
, is
where you are you. It is your first and greatest and deepest center of
consciousness. If you want to know how conscious and when conscious, I must
refer you to that little book, "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious.&qu=
ot;
At your solar plexus you are primarily conscio=
us:
there, behind you stomach. There you have the profound and pristine conscio=
us
awareness that you are you. Don't say you haven't. I know you have. You mig=
ht
as well try to deny the nose on your face. There is your first and deepest =
seat
of awareness. There you are triumphantly aware of your own individual exist=
ence
in the universe. Absolutely there is the keep and central stronghold of your
triumphantly-conscious self. There you are, and you know it. So stick out y=
our
tummy gaily, my dear, with a Me voilà. With a Here I am! With an Ecco
mi! With a Da bin ich! There you are, dearie.
But not only a triumphant awareness that There=
you
are. An exultant awareness also that outside this quiet gate, this navel, l=
ies
a whole universe on which you can lay tribute. Aha--at birth you closed the=
central
gate for ever. Too dangerous to leave it open. Too near the quick. But there
are other gates. There are eyes and mouths and ears and nostrils, besides t=
he
two lower gates of the passionate body, and the closed but not locked gates=
of
the breasts. Many gates. And besides the actual gates, the marvelous wirele=
ss
communication between the great center and the surrounding or contiguous wo=
rld.
Authorized science tells you that this first g=
reat
plexus, this all-potent nerve-center of consciousness and dynamic life-acti=
vity
is a sympathetic center. From the solar plexus as from your castle-keep you
look around and see the fair lands smiling, the corn and fruit and cattle of
your increase, the cottages of your dependents and the halls of your belove=
ds.
From the solar plexus you know that all the world is yours, and all is good=
ly.
This is the great center, where in the womb, y=
our
life first sparkled in individuality. This is the center that drew the
gestating maternal blood-stream upon you, in the nine-months lurking, drew =
it
on you for your increase. This is the center whence the navel-string broke,=
but
where the invisible string of dynamic consciousness, like a dark electric
current connecting you with the rest of life, will never break until you die
and depart from corporate individuality.
They say, by the way, that doctors now perform=
a
little operation on the born baby, so that no more navel shows. No more
belly-buttons, dear reader! Lucky I caught you this generation, before the
doctors had saved your appearances. Yet, caro mio, whether it shows or not,=
there
you once had immediate connection with the maternal blood-stream. And, beca=
use
the male nucleus which derived from the father still lies sparkling and pot=
ent
within the solar plexus, therefore that great nerve-center of you, still has
immediate knowledge of your father, a subtler but still vital connection. W=
e call
it the tie of blood. So be it. It is a tie of blood. But much more definite
than we imagine. For true it is that the one bright male germ which went to
your begetting was drawn from the blood of the father. And true it is that =
that
same bright male germ lies unquenched and unquenchable at the center of you,
within the famous solar plexus. And furthermore true is it that this unquen=
ched
father-spark within you sends forth vibrations and dark currents of vital
activity all the time; connecting direct with your father. You will never be
able to get away from it while you live.
The connection with the mother may be more
obvious. Is there not your ostensible navel, where the rupture between you =
and
her took place? But because the mother-child relation is more plausible and
flagrant, is that any reason for supposing it deeper, more vital, more intr=
insic?
Not a bit. Because if the large parent mother-germ still lives and acts viv=
idly
and mysteriously in the great fused nucleus of your solar plexus, does the
smaller, brilliant male-spark that derived from your father act any less
vividly? By no means. It is different--it is less ostensible. It may be eve=
n in
magnitude smaller. But it may be even more vivid, even more intrinsic. So
beware how you deny the father-quick of yourself. You may be denying the mo=
st intrinsic
quick of all.
In the same way it follows that, since brothers and sisters have the same father and mother, therefore in every brother and sister there is a direct communication such as can never happen between strangers. The parent nuclei do not die within the new nucleus. They remain there, marvelous naked sparkling dynamic life-centers, nodes, well-heads of= vivid life itself. Therefore in every individual the parent nuclei live, and give direction connection, blood connection we call it, with the rest of the fam= ily. It is blood connection. For the fecundating nuclei are the very spark-essen= ce of the blood. And while life lives the parent nuclei maintain their own centrality and dynamic effectiveness within the solar plexus of the child. = So that every individual has mother and father both sparkling within himself.<= o:p>
But this is rather a preliminary truth than an
intrinsic truth. The intrinsic truth of every individual is the new unit of
unique individuality which emanates from the fusion of the parent nuclei. T=
his
is the incalculable and intangible Holy Ghost each time--each individual his
own Holy Ghost. When, at the moment of conception, the two parent nuclei fu=
se
to form a new unit of life, then takes place the great mystery of creation.=
A
new individual appears--not the result of the fusion merely. Something more.
The quality of individuality cannot be derived. The new individual, in his
singleness of self, is a perfectly new whole. He is not a permutation and c=
ombination
of old elements, transferred through the parents. No, he is something under=
ived
and utterly unprecedented, unique, a new soul.
This quality of pure individuality is, however,
only the one supreme quality. It consummates all other qualities, but does =
not
consume them. All the others are there, all the time. And only at his maxim=
um does
an individual surpass all his derivative elements, and become purely himsel=
f.
And most people never get there. In his own pure individuality a man surpas=
ses
his father and mother, and is utterly unknown to them. "Woman, what ha=
ve I
to do with thee?" But this does not alter the fact that within him liv=
es
the mother-quick and the father-quick, and that though in his wholeness he =
is
rapt away beyond the old mother-father connections, they are still there wi=
thin
him, consummated but not consumed. Nor does it alter the fact that very few=
people
surpass their parents nowadays, and attain any individuality beyond them. M=
ost
men are half-born slaves: the little soul they are born with just atrophies,
and merely the organism emanates, the new self, the new soul, the new swells
into manhood, like big potatoes.
So there we are. But considering man at his be=
st,
he is at the start faced with the great problem. At the very start he has to
undertake his tripartite being, the mother within him, the father within hi=
m, and
the Holy Ghost, the self which he is supposed to consummate, and which most=
ly
he doesn't.
And there it is, a hard physiological fact. At=
the
moment of our conception, the father nucleus fuses with the mother nucleus,=
and
the wonder emanates, the new self, the new soul, the new individual cell. B=
ut
in the new individual cell the father-germ and the mother-germ do not
relinquish their identity. There they remain still, incorporated and never
extinguished. And so, the blood-stream of race is one stream, for ever. But=
the
moment the mystery of pure individual newness ceased to be enacted and
fulfilled, the blood-stream would dry up and be finished. Mankind would die
out.
Let us go back then to the solar plexus. There
sparkle the included mother-germ and father-germ, giving us direct, immedia=
te
blood-bonds, family connection. The connection is as direct and as subtle a=
s between
the Marconi stations, two great wireless stations. A family, if you like, i=
s a
group of wireless stations, all adjusted to the same, or very much the same
vibration. All the time they quiver with the interchange, there is one long
endless flow of vitalistic communication between members of one family, a l=
ong,
strange rapport, a sort of life-unison. It is a ripple of life through many=
bodies
as through one body. But all the time there is the jolt, the rupture of
individualism, the individual asserting himself beyond all ties or claims. =
The
highest goal for every man is the goal of pure individual being. But it is a
goal you cannot reach by the mere rupture of all ties. A child isn't born by
being torn from the womb. When it is born by natural process that is rupture
enough. But even then the ties are not broken. They are only subtilized.
From the solar plexus first of all pass the gr=
eat
vitalistic communications between child and parents, the first interplay of=
primal,
pre-mental knowledge and sympathy. It is a great subtle interplay, and from
this interplay the child is built up, body and psyche. Impelled from the pr=
imal
conscious center in the abdomen, the child seeks the mother, seeks the brea=
st,
opens a blind mouth and gropes for the nipple. Not mentally directed and yet
certainly directed. Directed from the dark pre-mind center of the solar ple=
xus.
From this center the child seeks, the mother knows. Hence the true mindless=
ness
of the pristine, healthy mother. She does not need to think, mentally to kn=
ow.
She knows so profoundly and actively at the great abdominal life-center.
But if the child thus seeks the mother, does it
then know the mother alone? To an infant the mother is the whole universe. =
Yet
the child needs more than the mother. It needs as well the presence of men,=
the
vibration from the present body of the man. There may not be any actual,
palpable connection. But from the great voluntary center in the man pass
unknowable communications and unreliable nourishment of the stream of manly
blood, rays which we cannot see, and which so far we have refused to know, =
but
none the less essential, quickening dark rays which pass from the great dar=
k abdominal
life-center in the father to the corresponding center in the child. And the=
se
rays, these vibrations, are not like the mother-vibrations. Far, far from i=
t.
They do not need the actual contact, the handling and the caressing. On the=
contrary,
the true male instinct is to avoid physical contact with a baby. It may not
need even actual presence. But present or absent, there should be between t=
he
baby and the father that strange, intangible communication, that strange pu=
ll
and circuit such as the magnetic pole exercises upon a needle, a vitalistic
pull and flow which lays all the life-plasm of the baby into the line of vi=
tal quickening,
strength, knowing. And any lack of this vital circuit, this vital interchan=
ge
between father and child, man and child, means an inevitable impoverishment=
to
the infant.
The child exists in the interplay of two great
life-waves, the womanly and the male. In appearance, the mother is everythi=
ng.
In truth, the father has actively very little part. It does not matter much=
if
he hardly sees his child. Yet see it he should, sometimes, and touch it som=
etimes,
and renew with it the connection, the life-circuit, not allow it to lapse, =
and
so vitally starve his child.
But remember, dear reader, please, that there =
is
not the slightest need for you to believe me, or even read me. Remember, it=
's
just your own affair. Don't implicate me.
=
=
The
primal consciousness in man is pre-mental, and has nothing to do with
cognition. It is the same as in the animals. And this pre-mental consciousn=
ess
remains as long as we live the powerful root and body of our consciousness.=
The
mind is but the last flower, the cul de sac.
The first seat of our primal consciousnesses t=
he
solar plexus, the great nerve-center situated behind the stomach. From this
center we are first dynamically conscious. For the primal consciousness is =
always
dynamic, and never, like mental consciousness, static. Thought, let us say =
what
we will about its magic powers, is instrumental only, the soul's finest
instrument for the business of living. Thought is just a means to action and
living. But life and action take rise actually at the great centers of dyna=
mic
consciousness.
The solar plexus, the greatest and most import=
ant
center of our dynamic consciousness, is a sympathetic center. At this main
center of your first-mind we know as we can never mentally know. Primarily =
we know,
each man, each living creature knows, profoundly and satisfactorily and wit=
hout
question, that I am I. This root of all knowledge and being is established =
in
the solar plexus; it is dynamic, pre-mental knowledge, such as cannot be
transferred into thought. Do not ask me to transfer the pre-mental dynamic
knowledge into thought. It cannot be done. The knowledge that I am I can ne=
ver
be thought: only known.
This being the very first term of our
life-knowledge, a knowledge established physically and psychically the mome=
nt
the two parent nuclei fused, at the moment of the conception, it remains
integral as a piece of knowledge in every subsequent nucleus derived from t=
his
one original. But yet the original nucleus, formed from the two parent nucl=
ei
at our conception, remains always primal and central, and is always the
original fount and home of the first and supreme knowledge that I am I. This
original nucleus is embodied in the solar plexus.
But the original nucleus divides. The first
division, as science knows, is a division of recoil. From the perfect onein=
g of
the two parent nuclei in the egg-cell results a recoil or new assertion. Th=
at which
was perfect one now divides again, and in the recoil becomes again two.
This second nucleus, the nucleus born of recoi=
l,
is the nuclear origin of all the great nuclei of the voluntary system, which
are the nuclei of assertive individualism. And it remains central in the ad=
ult
human body as it was in the egg-cell. In the adult human body the first nuc=
leus
of independence, first-born from the great original nucleus of our concepti=
on,
lies always established in the lumbar ganglion. Here we have our positive
center of independence, in a multifarious universe.
At the solar plexus, the dynamic knowledge is
this, that I am I. The solar plexus is the center of all the sympathetic
system. The great prime knowledge is sympathetic in nature. I am I, in vital
centrality. I am I, the vital center of all things. I am I, the clew to the
whole. All is one with me. It is the one identity.
But at the lumbar ganglion, which is the cente=
r of
separate identity, the knowledge is of a different mode, though the term is=
the
same. At the lumbar ganglion I know that I am I, in distinction from a whol=
e universe,
which is not as I am. This is the first tremendous flash of knowledge of
singleness and separate identity. I am I, not because I am at one with all =
the
universe, but because I am other than all the universe. It is my distinction
from all the rest of things which makes me myself. Because I am set utterly
apart and distinguished from all that is the rest of the universe, therefor=
e I
am I. And this root of our knowledge in separateness lies rooted all the ti=
me
in the lumbar ganglion. It is the second term of our dynamic psychic existe=
nce.
It is from the great sympathetic center of the
solar plexus that the child rejoices in the mother and in its own blissful
centrality, its unison with the as yet unknown universe. Look at the pictur=
es
of Madonna and Child, and you will even see it. It is from this center that=
it
draws all things unto itself, winningly, drawing love for the soul, and
actively drawing in milk. The same center controls the great intake of love=
and
of milk, of psychic and of physical nourishment.
And it is from the great voluntary center of t=
he
lumbar ganglion that the child asserts its distinction from the mother, the
single identity of its own existence, and its power over its surroundings. =
From
this center issues the violent little pride and lustiness which kicks with =
glee,
or crows with tiny exultance in its own being, or which claws the breast wi=
th a
savage little rapacity, and an incipient masterfulness of which every mothe=
r is
aware. This incipient mastery, this sheer joy of a young thing in its own
single existence, the marvelous playfulness of early youth, and the roguish
mockery of the mother's love, as well as the bursts of temper and rage, all
belong to infancy. And all this flashes spontaneously, must flash spontaneo=
usly
from the first great center of independence, the powerful lumbar ganglion,
great dynamic center of all the voluntary system, of all the spirit of pride
and joy in independent existence. And it is from this center too that the m=
ilk
is urged away down the infant bowels, urged away towards excretion. The mot=
ion
is the same, but here it applies to the material, not to the vital relation=
. It
is from the lumbar ganglion that the dynamic vibrations are emitted which t=
hrill
from the stomach and bowels, and promote the excremental function of digest=
ion.
It is the solar plexus which controls the assimilatory function in digestio=
n.
So, in the first division of the egg-cell is s=
et
up the first plane of psychic and physical life, remaining radically the sa=
me
throughout the whole existence of the individual. The two original nuclei of
the egg-cell remain the same two original nuclei within the corpus of the a=
dult
individual. Their psychic and their physical dynamic is the same in the sol=
ar
plexus and lumbar ganglion as in the two nuclei of the egg-cell. The first
great division in the egg remains always the same, the unchanging great
division in the psychic and the physical structure; the unchanging great
division in knowledge and function. It is a division into polarized duality,
psychical and physical, of the human being. It is the great vertical divisi=
on
of the egg-cell, and of the nature of man.
Then, this division having taken place, there =
is a
new thrill of conjunction or collision between the divided nuclei, and at o=
nce
the second birth takes place. The two nuclei now split horizontally. There =
is a
horizontal division across the whole egg-cell, and the nuclei are now four,=
two
above, and two below. But those below retain their original nature, those a=
bove
are new in nature. And those above correspond again to those below.
In the developed child, the great horizontal
division of the egg-cell, resulting in four nuclei, this remains the same. =
The
horizontal division-wall is the diaphragm. The two upper nuclei are the two=
great
nerve-centers, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion. We have again a
sympathetic center primal in activity and knowledge, and a corresponding vo=
luntary
center. In the center of the breast, the cardiac plexus acts as the great
sympathetic mode of new dynamic activity, new dynamic consciousness. And ne=
ar
the spine, by the wall of the shoulders, the thoracic ganglion acts as the
powerful voluntary center of separateness and power, in the same vertical l=
ine
as the lumbar ganglion, but horizontally so different.
Now we must change our whole feeling. We must =
put
off the deep way of understanding which belongs to the lower body of our
nature, and transfer ourselves into the upper plane, where being and
functioning are different.
At the cardiac plexus, there in the center of =
the
breast, we have now a new great sun of knowledge and being. Here there is no
more of self. Here there is no longer the dark, exultant knowledge that I a=
m I.
A change has come. Here I know no more of myself. Here I am not. Here I only
know the delightful revelation that you are you. The wonder is no longer wi=
thin
me, my own dark, centrifugal, exultant self. The wonder is without me. The
wonder is outside me. And I can no longer exult and know myself the dark,
central sun of the universe. Now I look with wonder, with tenderness, with
joyful yearning towards that which is outside me, beyond me, not me. Behold,
that which was once negative has now become the only positive. The other be=
ing
is now the great positive reality, I myself am as nothing. Positivity has
changed places.
If we want to see the portrayed look, then we =
must
turn to the North, to the fair, wondering, blue-eyed infants of the Northern
masters. They seem so frail, so innocent and wondering, touching outwards t=
o the
mystery. They are not the same as the Southern child, nor the opposite. The=
ir
whole life mystery is different. Instead of consummating all things within =
themselves,
as the dark little Southern infants do, the Northern Jesus-children reach o=
ut
delicate little hands of wondering innocence towards delicate,
flower-reverential mothers. Compare a Botticelli Madonna, with all her woun=
ded
and abnegating sensuality, with a Hans Memling Madonna, whose soul is pure =
and
only reverential. Beyond me is the mystery and the glory, says the Northern
mother: let me have no self, let me only seek that which is all-pure,
all-wonderful. But the Southern mother says: This is mine, this is mine, th=
is
is my child, my wonder, my master, my lord, my scourge, my own.
From the cardiac plexus the child goes forth in
bliss. It seeks the revelation of the unknown. It wonderingly seeks the mot=
her.
It opens its small hands and spreads its small fingers to touch her. And bl=
iss,
bliss, bliss, it meets the wonder in mid-air and in mid-space it finds the
loveliness of the mother's face. It opens and shuts its little fingers with
bliss, it laughs the wonderful, selfless laugh of pure baby-bliss, in the f=
irst
ecstasy of finding all its treasure, groping upon it and finding it in the
dark. It opens wide, child-wide eyes to see, to see. But it cannot see. It =
is
puzzled, it wrinkles its face. But when the mother puts her face quite near,
and laughs and coos, then the baby trembles with an ecstasy of love. The
glamour, the wonder, the treasure beyond. The great uplift of rapture. All =
this
surges from that first center of the breast, the sun of the breast, the car=
diac
plexus.
And from the same center acts the great functi=
on
of the heart and breath. Ah, the aspiration, the aspiration, like a hope, l=
ike
a yearning constant and unfailing with which we take in breath. When we bre=
athe,
when we take in breath, it is not as when we take in food. When we breathe =
in
we aspire, we yearn towards the heaven of air and light. And when the heart
dilates to draw in the stream of dark blood, it opens its arms as to a belo=
ved.
It dilates with reverent joy, as a host opening his doors to an honored gue=
st,
whom he delights to serve: opening his doors to the wonder which comes to h=
im
from beyond, and without which he were nothing.
So it is that our heart dilates, our lungs exp=
and.
They are bidden by that great and mysterious impulse from the cardiac plexu=
s,
which bids them seek the mystery and the fulfillment of the beyond. They se=
ek
the beyond, the air of the sky, the hot blood from the dark under-world. An=
d so
we live.
And then, they relax, they contract. They are
driven by the opposite motion from the powerful voluntary center of the
thoracic ganglion.. That which was drawn in, was invited, is now relinquish=
ed,
allowed to go forth, negatively. Not positively dismissed, but relinquished=
.
There is a wonderful complementary duality bet=
ween
the voluntary and the sympathetic activity on the same plane. But between t=
he
two planes, upper and lower, there is a further dualism, still more startli=
ng,
perhaps. Between the dark, glowing first term of knowledge at the solar ple=
xus:
I am I, all is one in me; and the first term of volitional knowledge: I am
myself, and these others are not as I am;--there is a world of difference. =
But
when the world changes again, and on the upper plane we realize the wonder =
of
other things, the difference is almost shattering. The thoracic ganglion is=
a ganglion
of power. When the child in its delicate bliss seeks the mother and finds h=
er
and is added on to her, then it fulfills itself in the great upper sympathe=
tic
mode. But then it relinquishes her. It ceases to be aware of her. And if she
tries to force its love to play upon her again, like light revealing her to
herself, then the child turns away. Or it will lie, and look at her with the
strange, odd, curious look of knowledge, like a little imp who is spying her
out. This is the curious look that many mothers cannot bear. Involuntarily =
it
arouses a sort of hate in them--the look of scrutinizing curiosity, apart, =
and
as it were studying, balancing them up. Yet it is a look which comes into e=
very
child's eyes. It is the reaction of the great voluntary plexus between the
shoulders. The mother is suddenly set apart, as an object of curiosity, col=
dly,
sometimes dreamily, sometimes puzzled, sometimes mockingly observed.
Again, if a mother neglect her child, it cries=
, it
weeps for her love and attention. Its pitiful lament is one of the forms of
compulsion from the upper center. This insistence on pity, on love, is quit=
e different
from the rageous weeping, which is compulsion from the lower center, below =
the
diaphragm. Again, some children just drop everything they can lay hands on =
over
the edge of their crib, or their table. They drop everything out of sight. =
And
then they look up with a curious look of negative triumph. This is again a =
form
of recoil from the upper center, the obliteration of the thing which is
outside. And here a child is acting quite differently from the child who
joyously smashes. The desire to smash comes from the lower centers.
We can quite well recognize the will exerted f=
rom
the lower center. We call it headstrong temper and masterfulness. But the
peculiar will of the upper center--the sort of nervous, critical objectivit=
y,
the deliberate forcing of sympathy, the play upon pity and tenderness, the =
plaintive
bullying of love, or the benevolent bullying of love--these we don't care to
recognize. They are the extravagance of spiritual will. But in its true har=
mony
the thoracic ganglion is a center of happier activity: of real, eager
curiosity, of the delightful desire to pick things to pieces, and the desir=
e to
put them together again, the desire to "find out," and the desire=
to
invent: all this arises on the upper plane, at the volitional center of the
thoracic ganglion.
=
Oh,
damn the miserable baby with its complicated ping-pong table of an unconsci=
ous.
I'm sure, dear reader, you'd rather have to listen to the brat howling in i=
ts
crib than to me expounding its plexuses. As for "mixing those babies
up," I'd mix him up like a shot if I'd anything to mix him with.
Unfortunately he's my own anatomical specimen of a pickled rabbit, so there=
's
nothing to be done with the bits.
But he gets on my nerves. I come out solemnly =
with
a pencil and an exercise book, and take my seat in all gravity at the foot =
of a
large fir-tree, and wait for thoughts to come, gnawing like a squirrel on a=
nut.
But the nut's hollow.
I think there are too many trees. They seem to
crowd round and stare at me, and I feel as if they nudged one another when =
I'm
not looking. I can feel them standing there. And they won't let me get on a=
bout
the baby this morning. Just their cussedness. I felt they encouraged me lik=
e a
harem of wonderful silent wives, yesterday.
It is half rainy too--the wood so damp and sti=
ll
and so secret, in the remote morning air. Morning, with rain in the sky, and
the forest subtly brooding, and me feeling no bigger than a pea-bug between=
the
roots of my fir. The trees seem so much bigger than me, so much stronger in
life, prowling silent around. I seem to feel them moving and thinking and
prowling, and they overwhelm me. Ah, well, the only thing is to give way to
them.
It is the edge of the Black Forest--sometimes =
the
Rhine far off, on its Rhine plain, like a bit of magnesium ribbon. But not
to-day. To-day only trees, and leaves, and vegetable presences. Huge straig=
ht fir-trees,
and big beech-trees sending rivers of roots into the ground. And cuckoos, l=
ike
noise falling in drops off the leaves. And me, a fool, sitting by a grassy
wood-road with a pencil and a book, hoping to write more about that baby.
Never mind. I listen again for noises, and I s=
mell
the damp moss. The looming trees, so straight. And I listen for their silen=
ce.
Big, tall-bodied trees, with a certain magnificent cruelty about them. Or b=
arbarity.
I don't know why I should say cruelty. Their magnificent, strong, round bod=
ies!
It almost seems I can hear the slow, powerful sap drumming in their trunks.
Great full-blooded trees, with strange tree-blood in them, soundlessly
drumming.
Trees that have no hands and faces, no eyes. Y=
et
the powerful sap-scented blood roaring up the great columns. A vast individ=
ual life,
and an overshadowing will. The will of a tree. Something that frightens you=
.
Suppose you want to look a tree in the face? Y=
ou
can't. It hasn't got a face. You look at the strong body of a trunk: you lo=
ok
above you into the matted body-hair of twigs and boughs: you see the soft g=
reen
tips. But there are no eyes to look into, you can't meet its gaze. You keep=
on
looking at it in part and parcel.
It's no good looking at a tree, to know it. The
only thing is to sit among the roots and nestle against its strong trunk, a=
nd
not bother. That's how I write all about these planes and plexuses, between=
the
toes of a tree, forgetting myself against the great ankle of the trunk. And
then, as a rule, as a squirrel is stroked into its wickedness by the facele=
ss
magic of a tree, so am I usually stroked into forgetfulness, and into
scribbling this book. My tree-book, really.
I come so well to understand tree-worship. All= the old Aryans worshiped the tree. My ancestors. The tree of life. The tree of = knowledge. Well, one is bound to sprout out some time or other, chip of the old Aryan block. I can so well understand tree-worship. And fear the deepest motive.<= o:p>
Naturally. This marvelous vast individual with=
out
a face, without lips or eyes or heart. This towering creature that never ha=
d a
face. Here am I between his toes like a pea-bug, and him noiselessly over-r=
eaching
me. And I feel his great blood-jet surging. And he has no eyes. But he turns
two ways. He thrusts himself tremendously down to the middle earth, where d=
ead
men sink in darkness, in the damp, dense under-soil, and he turns himself a=
bout
in high air. Whereas we have eyes on one side of our head only, and only gr=
ow
upwards.
Plunging himself down into the black humus, wi=
th a
root's gushing zest, where we can only rot dead; and his tips in high air,
where we can only look up to. So vast and powerful and exultant in his two =
directions.
And all the time, he has no face, no thought: only a huge, savage, thoughtl=
ess
soul. Where does he even keep his soul?--Where does anybody?
A huge, plunging, tremendous soul. I would lik=
e to
be a tree for a while. The great lust of roots. Root-lust. And no mind at a=
ll.
He towers, and I sit and feel safe. I like to feel him towering round me. I
used to be afraid. I used to fear their lust, their rushing black lust. But=
now
I like it, I worship it. I always felt them huge primeval enemies. But now =
they
are my only shelter and strength. I lose myself among the trees. I am so gl=
ad
to be with them in their silent, intent passion, and their great lust. They
feed my soul. But I can understand that Jesus was crucified on a tree.
And I can so well understand the Romans, their
terror of the bristling Hercynian wood. Yet when you look from a height down
upon the rolling of the forest--this Black Forest--it is as suave as a roll=
ing,
oily sea. Inside only, it bristles horrific. And it terrified the Romans.
The Romans! They too seem very near. Nearer th=
an
Hindenburg or Foch or even Napoleon. When I look across the Rhine plain, it=
is
Rome, and the legionaries of the Rhine that my soul notices. It must have b=
een wonderful
to come from South Italy to the shores of this sea-like forest: this dark,
moist forest, with its enormously powerful intensity of tree life. Now I kn=
ow,
coming myself from rock-dry Sicily, open to the day.
The Romans and the Greeks found everything hum=
an.
Everything had a face, and a human voice. Men spoke, and their fountains pi=
ped
an answer.
But when the legions crossed the Rhine they fo=
und
a vast impenetrable life which had no voice. They met the faceless silence =
of
the Black Forest. This huge, huge wood did not answer when they called. Its=
silence
was too crude and massive. And the soldiers shrank: shrank before the trees
that had no faces, and no answer. A vast array of non-human life, darkly
self-sufficient, and bristling with indomitable energy. The Hercynian wood,=
not
to be fathomed. The enormous power of these collective trees, stronger in t=
heir
somber life even than Rome.
No wonder the soldiers were terrified. No wond=
er
they thrilled with horror when, deep in the woods, they found the skulls and
trophies of their dead comrades upon the trees. The trees had devoured them=
: silently,
in mouthfuls, and left the white bones. Bones of the mindful Romans--and
savage, preconscious trees, indomitable. The true German has something of t=
he
sap of trees in his veins even now: and a sort of pristine savageness, like
trees, helpless, but most powerful, under all his mentality. He is a tree-s=
oul,
and his gods are not human. His instinct still is to nail skulls and trophi=
es
to the sacred tree, deep in the forest. The tree of life and death, tree of
good and evil, tree of abstraction and of immense, mindless life; tree of
everything except the spirit, spirituality.
But after bone-dry Sicily, and after the gibbe=
ring
of myriad people all rattling their personalities, I am glad to be with the
profound indifference of faceless trees. Their rudimentariness cannot know =
why we
care for the things we care for. They have no faces, no minds and bowels: o=
nly
deep, lustful roots stretching in earth, and vast, lissome life in air, and
primeval individuality. You can sacrifice the whole of your spirituality on
their altar still. You can nail your skull on their limbs. They have no sku=
lls,
no minds nor faces, they can't make eyes of love at you. Their vast life
dispenses with all this. But they will live you down.
The normal life of one of these big trees is a=
bout
a hundred years. So the Herr Baron told me.
One of the few places that my soul will haunt,
when I am dead, will be this. Among the trees here near Ebersteinburg, wher=
e I
have been alone and written this book. I can't leave these trees. They have=
taken
some of my soul.
*
Excuse my digression, gentle reader. At first I
left it out, thinking we might not see wood for trees. But it doesn't much
matter what we see. It's nice just to look round, anywhere.
So there are two planes of being and conscious=
ness
and two modes of relation and of function. We will call the lower plane the
sensual, the upper the spiritual. The terms may be unwise, but we can think=
of no
other.
Please read that again, dear reader; you'll be=
a
bit dazzled, coming out of the wood.
It is obvious that from the time a child is bo=
rn,
or conceived, it has a permanent relation with the outer universe, relation=
in
the two modes, not one mode only. There are two ways of love, two ways of a=
ctivity
and independence. And there needs some sort of equilibrium between the two
modes. In the same way, in physical function there is eating and drinking, =
and
excrementation, on the lower plane and respiration and heartbeat on the upp=
er
plane.
Now the equilibrium to be established is fourf=
old.
There must be a true equilibrium between what we eat and what we reject aga=
in
by excretion: likewise between the systole and diastole of the heart, the
inspiration and expiration of our breathing. Suffice to say the equilibrium=
is
never quite perfect. Most people are either too fat or too thin, too hot or=
too
cold, too slow or too quick. There is no such thing as an actual norm, a li=
ving
norm. A norm is merely an abstraction, not a reality.
The same on the psychical plane. We either love
too much, or impose our will too much, are too spiritual or too sensual. Th=
ere
is not and cannot be any actual norm of human conduct. All depends, first, =
on
the unknown inward need within the very nuclear centers of the individual h=
imself,
and secondly on his circumstance. Some men must be too spiritual, some must=
be
too sensual. Some must be too sympathetic, and some must be too proud. We h=
ave
no desire to say what men ought to be. We only wish to say there are all ki=
nds
of ways of being, and there is no such thing as human perfection. No man ca=
n be
anything more than just himself, in genuine living relation to all his surr=
oundings.
But that which I am, when I am myself, will certainly be anathema to those =
who
hate individual integrity, and want to swarm. And that which I, being mysel=
f,
am in myself, may make the hair bristle with rage on a man who is also hims=
elf,
but very different from me. Then let it bristle. And if mine bristle back
again, then let us, if we must, fly at one another like two enraged men. It=
is
how it should be. We've got to learn to live from the center of our own res=
ponsibility
only, and let other people do the same.
To return to the child, however, and his
development on his two planes of consciousness. There is all the time a dir=
ect
dynamic connection between child and mother, child and father also, from the
start. It is a connection on two planes, the upper and lower. From the lowe=
r sympathetic
center the profound intake of love or vibration from the living co-responde=
nt
outside. From the upper sympathetic center the outgoing of devotion and the
passionate vibration of given love, given attention. The two sympathetic
centers are always, or should always be, counterbalanced by their correspon=
ding
voluntary centers. From the great voluntary ganglion of the lower plane, the
child is self-willed, independent, and masterful.
In the activity of this center a boy refuses t=
o be
kissed and pawed about, maintaining his proud independence like a little wi=
ld
animal. From this center he likes to command and to receive obedience. From=
this
center likewise he may be destructive and defiant and reckless, determined =
to
have his own way at any cost.
From this center, too, he learns to use his le=
gs.
The motion of walking, like the motion of breathing, is twofold. First, a s=
ympathetic
cleaving to the earth with the foot: then the voluntary rejection, the
spurning, the kicking away, the exultance in power and freedom.
From the upper voluntary center the child watc=
hes
persistently, wilfully, for the attention of the mother: to be taken notice=
of,
to be caressed, in short to exist in and through the mother's attention. Fr=
om
this center, too, he coldly refuses to notice the mother, when she insists =
on
too much attention. This cold refusal is different from the active rejectio=
n of
the lower center. It is passive, but cold and negative. It is the great for=
ce
of our day. From the ganglion of the shoulders, also, the child breathes and
his heart beats. From the same center he learns the first use of his arms. =
In
the gesture of sympathy, from the upper plane, he embraces his mother with =
his
arms. In the motion of curiosity, or interest, which derives from the thora=
cic
ganglion, he spreads his fingers, touches, feels, explores. In the motion of
rejection he drops an undesired object deliberately out of sight.
And then, when the four centers of what we call
the first field of consciousness are fully active, then it is that the eyes
begin to gather their sight, the mouth to speak, the ears to awake to their=
intelligent
hearings; all as a result of the great fourfold activity of the first dynam=
ic
field of consciousness. And then also, as a result, the mind wakens to its
impressions and to its incipient control. For at first the control is
non-mental, even non-cerebral. The brain acts only as a sort of switchboard=
.
The business of the father, in all this incipi=
ent
child-development, is to stand outside as a final authority and make the
necessary adjustments. Where there is too much sympathy, then the great vol=
untary
centers of the spine are weak, the child tends to be delicate. Then the fat=
her
by instinct supplies the roughness, the sternness which stiffens in the chi=
ld
the centers of resistance and independence, right from the very earliest da=
ys.
Often, for a mere infant, it is the father's fierce or stern presence, the
vibration of his voice, which starts the frictional and independent activit=
y of
the great voluntary ganglion and gives the first impulse to the independence
which later on is life itself.
But on the other hand, the father, from his
distance, supports, protects, nourishes his child, and it is ultimately on =
the
remote but powerful father-love that the infant rests, in a rest which is
beyond mother-love. For in the male the dominant centers are naturally the =
volitional
centers, centers of responsibility, authority, and care.
It is the father's business, again, to maintain
some sort of equilibrium between the two modes of love in his infant. A mot=
her
may wish to bring up her child from the lovely upper centers only, from the
centers of the breast, in the mode of what we call pure or spiritual love. =
Then
the child will be all gentle, all tender and tender-radiant, always enfolded
with gentleness and forbearance, always shielded from grossness or pain or
roughness. Now the father's instinct is to be rough and crude, good-natured=
ly
brutal with the child, calling the deeper centers, the sensual centers, into
play. "What do you want? My watch? Well, you can't have it, do you see=
, because
it's mine." Not a lot of explanations of the "You see, darling.&q=
uot;
No such nonsense.--Or if a child wails unnecessarily for its mother, the fa=
ther
must be the check. "Stop your noise, you little brat! What ails you, y=
ou
whiner?" And if children be too sensitive, too sympathetic, then it wi=
ll
do the child no harm if the father occasionally throws the cat out of the
window, or kicks the dog, or raises a storm in the house. Storms there must=
be.
And if the child is old enough and robust enough, it can occasionally have =
its
bottom soundly spanked--by the father, if the mother refuses to perform tha=
t most
necessary duty. For a child's bottom is made occasionally to be spanked. The
vibration of the spanking acts direct upon the spinal nerve-system, there i=
s a
direct reciprocity and reaction, the spanker transfers his wrath to the gre=
at
will-centers in the child, and these will-centers react intensely, are vivi=
fied
and educated.
On the other hand, given a mother who is too
generally hard or indifferent, then it rests with the father to provide the
delicate sympathy and the refined discipline. Then the father must show the=
tender
sensitiveness of the upper mode. The sad thing to-day is that so few mothers
have any deep bowels of love--or even the breast of love. What they have is=
the
benevolent spiritual will, the will of the upper self. But the will is not
love. And benevolence in a parent is a poison. It is bullying. In these
circumstances the father must give delicate adjustment, and, above all, some
warm, native love from the richer sensual self.
The question of corporal punishment is importa=
nt.
It is no use roughly smacking a shrinking, sensitive child. And yet, if a c=
hild
is too shrinking, too sensitive, it may do it a world of good cheerfully to=
spank
its posterior. Not brutally, not cruelly, but with real sound, good-natured
exasperation. And let the adult take the full responsibility, half humorous=
ly,
without apology or explanation. Let us avoid self-justification at all cost=
s.
Real corporal punishments apply to the sensual plane. The refined punishmen=
ts
of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a g=
ood
smack. The pained but resigned disapprobation of a mother is usually a very=
bad
thing, much worse than the father's shouts of rage. And sendings to bed, an=
d no
dessert for a week, and so on, are crueller and meaner than a bang on the h=
ead.
When a parent gives his boy a beating, there is a living passionate
interchange. But in these refined punishments, the parent suffers nothing a=
nd
the child is deadened. The bullying of the refined, benevolent spiritual wi=
ll
is simply vitriol to the soul. Yet parents administer it with all the
righteousness of virtue and good intention, sparing themselves perfectly.
The point is here. If a child makes you so that
you really want to spank it soundly, then soundly spank the brat. But know =
all
the time what you are doing, and always be responsible for your anger. Neve=
r be
ashamed of it, and never surpass it. The flashing interchange of anger betw=
een
parent and child is part of the responsible relationship, necessary to grow=
th.
Again, if a child offends you deeply, so that you really can't communicate =
with
it any more, then, while the hurt is deep, switch off your connection from =
the
child, cut off your correspondence, your vital communion, and be alone. But=
never
persist in such a state beyond the time when your deep hurt dies down. The =
only
rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your
own responsibility sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emoti=
on.
They enrichen the child's soul.
For a child's primary education depends almost
entirely on its relation to its parents, brothers, and sisters. Between mot=
her
and child, father and child, the law is this: I, the mother, am myself alon=
e:
the child is itself alone. But there exists between us a vital dynamic
relation, for which I, being the conscious one, am basically responsible. S=
o,
as far as possible, there must be in me no departure from myself, lest I in=
jure
the preconscious dynamic relation. I must absolutely act according to my own
true spontaneous feeling. But, moreover, I must also have wisdom for myself=
and
for my child. Always, always the deep wisdom of responsibility. And always a
brave responsibility for the soul's own spontaneity. Love--what is love? We=
'd
better get a new idea. Love is, in all, generous impulse--even a good spank=
ing.
But wisdom is something else, a deep collectedness in the soul, a deep abid=
ing
by my own integral being, which makes me responsible, not for the child, but
for my certain duties towards the child, and for maintaining the dynamic fl=
ow
between the child and myself as genuine as possible: that is to say, not
perverted by ideals or by my will.
Most fatal, most hateful of all things is
bullying. But what is bullying? It is a desire to superimpose my own will u=
pon
another person. Sensual bullying of course is fairly easily detected. What =
is more
dangerous is ideal bullying. Bullying people into what is ideally good for
them. I embrace for example an ideal, and I seek to enact this ideal in the
person of another. This is ideal bullying. A mother says that life should be
all love, all delicacy and forbearance and gentleness. And she proceeds to =
spin
a hateful sticky web of permanent forbearance, gentleness, hushedness around
her naturally passionate and hasty child. This so foils the child as to make
him half imbecile or criminal. I may have ideals if I like--even of love and
forbearance and meekness. But I have no right to ask another to have these
ideals. And to impose any ideals upon a child as it grows is almost crimina=
l.
It results in impoverishment and distortion and subsequent deficiency. In o=
ur
day, most dangerous is the love and benevolence ideal. It results in
neurasthenia, which is largely a dislocation or collapse of the great volun=
tary
centers, a derangement of the will. It is in us an insistence upon the one
life-mode only, the spiritual mode. It is a suppression of the great lower
centers, and a living a sort of half-life, almost entirely from the upper
centers. Thence, since we live terribly and exhaustively from the upper
centers, there is a tendency now towards pthisis and neurasthenia of the he=
art.
The great sympathetic center of the breast becomes exhausted, the lungs, bu=
rnt
by the over-insistence of one way of life, become diseased, the heart, stra=
ined
in one mode of dilation, retaliates. The powerful lower centers are no long=
er
fully active, particularly the great lumbar ganglion, which is the clue to =
our
sensual passionate pride and independence, this ganglion is atrophied by su=
ppression.
And it is this ganglion which holds the spine erect. So, weak-chested, roun=
d-shouldered,
we stoop hollowly forward on ourselves. It is the result of the all-famous =
love
and charity ideal, an ideal now quite dead in its sympathetic activity, but
still fixed and determined in its voluntary action.
Let us beware and beware, and beware of having=
a
high ideal for ourselves. But particularly let us beware of having an ideal=
for
our children. So doing, we damn them. All we can have is wisdom. And wisdom=
is
not a theory, it is a state of soul. It is the state wherein we know our
wholeness and the complicate, manifold nature of our being. It is the state
wherein we know the great relations which exist between us and our near one=
s.
And it is the state which accepts full responsibility, first for our own so=
uls,
and then for the living dynamic relations wherein we have our being. It is =
no
use expecting the other person to know. Each must know for himself. But
nowadays men have even a stunt of pretending that children and idiots alone=
know
best. This is a pretty piece of sophistry, and criminal cowardice, trying to
dodge the life-responsibility which no man or woman can dodge without disas=
ter.
The only thing is to be direct. If a child has=
to
swallow castor-oil, then say: "Child, you've got to swallow this
castor-oil. It is necessary for your inside. I say so because it is true. So
open your mouth." Why try coaxing and logic and tricks with children?
Children are more sagacious than we are. They twig soon enough if there is =
a flaw
in our own intention and our own true spontaneity. And they play up to our =
bit
of falsity till there is hell to pay.
"You love mother, don't you,
dear?"--Just a piece of indecent trickery of the spiritual will. The g=
reat
emotions like love are unspoken. Speaking them is a sign of an indecent
bullying will.
"Poor pussy! You must love poor pussy!&qu=
ot;
What cant! What sickening cant! An appeal to l=
ove
based on false pity. That's the way to inculcate a filthy pharisaic conceit
into a child.--If the child ill-treats the cat, say:
"Stop mauling that cat. It's got its own =
life
to live, so let it live it." Then if the brat persists, give tit for t=
at.
"What, you pull the cat's tail! Then I'll
pull your nose, to see how you like it." And give his nose a proper ha=
rd
pinch.
Children must pull the cat's tail a little.
Children must steal the sugar sometimes. They must occasionally spoil just =
the
things one doesn't want them to spoil. And they must occasionally tell stor=
ies--tell
a lie. Circumstances and life are such that we must all sometimes tell a li=
e:
just as we wear trousers, because we don't choose that everybody shall see =
our
nakedness. Morality is a delicate act of adjustment on the soul's part, not=
a
rule or a prescription. Beyond a certain point the child shall not pull the
cat's tail, or steal the sugar, or spoil the furniture, or tell lies. But I=
'm afraid
you can't fix this certain soul's humor. And so it must. If at a sudden poi=
nt
you fly into a temper and thoroughly beat the boy for hardly touching the
cat--well, that's life. All you've got to say to him is: "There, that'=
ll
serve you for all the times you have pulled her tail and hurt her." An=
d he
will feel outraged, and so will you. But what does it matter? Children have=
an
infinite understanding of the soul's passionate variabilities, and forgive =
even
a real injustice, if it was spontaneous and not intentional. They know we a=
ren't
perfect. What they don't forgive us is if we pretend we are: or if we bully=
.
=
= Science is wretched in its treatment of the human body as a sort of complex mechani= sm made up of numerous little machines working automatically in a rather unsatisfactory relation to one another. The body is the total machine; the various organs are the included machines; and the whole thing, given a star= t at birth, or at conception, trundles on by itself. The only god in the machine, the human will or intelligence, is absolutely at the mercy of the machine.<= o:p>
Such is the orthodox view. Soul, when it is al=
lowed
an existence at all, sits somewhat vaguely within the machine, never define=
d.
If anything goes wrong with the machine, why, the soul is forgotten instant=
ly.
We summon the arch-mechanic of our day, the medicine-man. And a marvelous
earnest fraud he is, doing his best. He is really wonderful as a mechanic of
the human system. But the life within us fails more and more, while we
marvelously tinker at the engines. Doctors are not to blame.
It is obvious that, even considering the human
body as a very delicate and complex machine, you cannot keep such a machine
running for one day without most exact central control. Still more is it
impossible to consider the automatic evolution of such a machine. When did =
any machine,
even a single spinning-wheel, automatically evolve itself? There was a god =
in
the machine before the machine existed.
So there we are with the human body. There must
have been, and must be a central god in the machine of each animate corpus.=
The
little soul of the beetle makes the beetle toddle. The little soul of the h=
omo sapiens
sets him on his two feet. Don't ask me to define the soul. You might as well
ask a bicycle to define the young damsel who so whimsically and so god-like
pedals her way along the highroad. A young lady skeltering off on her bicyc=
le
to meet her young man--why, what could the bicycle make of such a mystery, =
if
you explained it till doomsday. Yet the bicycle wouldn't be spinning from
Streatham to Croydon by itself.
So we may as well settle down to the little go=
d in
the machine. We may as well call it the individual soul, and leave it there.
It's as far as the bicycle would ever get, if it had to define Mademoiselle.
But be sure the bicycle would not deny the existence of the young miss who =
seats
herself in the saddle. Not like us, who try to pretend there is no one in t=
he
saddle. Why even the sun would no more spin without a rider than would a
cycle-pedal. But, since we have innumerable planets to reckon with, in the
spinning we must not begin to define the rider in terms of our own exclusive
planet. Nevertheless, rider there is: even a rider of the many-wheeled
universe.
But let us leave the universe alone. It is too=
big
a bauble for me.--Revenons.--At the start of me there is me. There is a mys=
terious
little entity which is my individual self, the god who builds the machine a=
nd
then makes his gay excursion of seventy years within it. Now we are talking=
at
the moment about the machine. For the moment we are the bicycle, and not the
feather-brained cyclist. So that all we can do is to define the cyclist in
terms of ourself. A bicycle could say: Here, upon my leather saddle, rests a
strange and animated force, which I call the force of gravity, as being the=
one
great force which controls my universe. And yet, on second thoughts, I must
modify myself. This great force of gravity is not always in the saddle.
Sometimes it just is not there--and I lean strangely against a wall. I have
been even known to turn upside down, with my wheels in the air; spun by the
same mysterious Miss. So that I must introduce a theory of Relativity. Howe=
ver,
mostly, when I am awake and alive, she is in the saddle; or it is in the
saddle, the mysterious force. And when it is in the saddle, then two subsid=
iary
forces plunge and claw upon my two pedals, plunge and claw with inestimable
power. And at the same time, a kind and mysterious force sways my head-stoc=
k, sways
most incalculably, and governs my whole motion. This force is not a driving
force, but a subtle directing force, beneath whose grip my bright steel bod=
y is
flexible as a dipping highroad. Then let me not forget the sudden clutch of
arrest upon my hurrying wheels. Oh, this is pain to me! While I am rushing
forward, surpassing myself in an élan vital, suddenly the awful check
grips my back wheel, or my front wheel, or both. Suddenly there is a fearful
arrest. My soul rushes on before my body, I feel myself strained, torn back=
. My
fibers groan. Then perhaps the tension relaxes.
So the bicycle will continue to babble about itself. And it will inevitably wind up with a philosophy. "Oh, if only= the great and divine force rested for ever upon my saddle, and if only the myst= erious will which sways my steering gear remained in place for ever: then my pedals would revolve of themselves, and never cease, and no hideous brake should t= ear the perpetuity of my motions. Then, oh then I should be immortal. I should = leap through the world for ever, and spin to infinity, till I was identified with the dizzy and timeless cycle-race of the stars and the great sun...."<= o:p>
Poor old bicycle. The very thought is enough to
start a philanthropic society for the prevention of cruelty to bicycles.
Well, then, our human body is the bicycle. And=
our
individual and incomprehensible self is the rider thereof. And seeing that =
the universe
is another bicycle riding full tilt, we are bound to suppose a rider for th=
at
also. But we needn't say what sort of rider. When I see a cockroach scuttli=
ng
across the floor and turning up its tail I stand affronted, and think: A rum
sort of rider you must have. You've no business to have such a rider, do you
hear?--And when I hear the monotonous and plaintive cuckoo in the June wood=
s, I
think: Who the devil made that clock?--And when I see a politician making a=
fiery
speech on a platform, and the crowd gawping, I think: Lord, save me--they've
all got riders. But Holy Moses! you could never guess what was coming.--And=
so
I shouldn't like, myself, to start guessing about the rider of the universe=
. I
am all too flummoxed by the masquerade in the tourney round about me.
We ourselves then: wisdom, like charity, begin=
s at
home. We've each of us got a rider in the saddle: an individual soul. Mostl=
y it
can't ride, and can't steer, so mankind is like squadrons of bicycles runni=
ng
amok. We should every one fall off if we didn't ride so thick that we hold =
each
other up. Horrid nightmare!
As for myself, I have a horror of riding en bl=
oc.
So I grind away uphill, and sweat my guts out, as they say.
Well, well--my body is my bicycle: the whole
middle of me is the saddle where sits the rider of my soul. And my front wh=
eel
is the cardiac plane, and my back wheel is the solar plexus. And the brakes=
are
the voluntary ganglia. And the steering gear is my head. And the right and =
left
pedals are the right and left dynamics of the body, in some way correspondi=
ng
to the sympathetic and voluntary division.
So that now I know more or less how my rider r=
ides
me, and from what centers controls me. That is, I know the points of vital
contact between my rider and my machine: between my invisible and my visibl=
e self.
I don't attempt to say what is my rider. A bicycle might as well try to def=
ine
its young Miss by wriggling its handle-bars and ringing its bell.
However, having more or less determined the fo=
ur
primary motions, we can see the further unfolding. In a child, the solar pl=
exus
and the cardiac plexus, with corresponding voluntary ganglia, are awake and=
active.
From these centers develop the great functions of the body.
As we have seen, it is the solar plexus, with = the lumbar ganglion, which controls the great dynamic system, the functioning of the liver and the kidneys. Any excess in the sympathetic dynamism tends to = accelerate the action of the liver, to cause fever and constipation. Any collapse of t= he sympathetic dynamism causes anæmia. The sudden stimulating of the voluntary center may cause diarrhoea, and so on. But all this depends so completely on the polarized flow between the individual and the corresponde= nt, between the child and mother, child and father, child and sisters or brothe= rs or teacher, or circumambient universe, that it is impossible to lay down la= ws, unless we state particulars. Nevertheless, the whole of the great organs of the lo= wer body are controlled from the two lower centers, and these organs work well = or ill according as there is a true dynamic psychic activity at the two primary centers of consciousness. By a true dynamic psychic activity we mean an activity which is true to the individual himself, to his own peculiar soul-nature. And a dynamic psychic activity means a dynamic polarity between the individual himself and other individuals concerned in his living; or between him and his immediate surroundings, human, physical, geographical.<= o:p>
On the upper plane, the lungs and heart are
controlled from the cardiac plane and the thoracic ganglion. Any excess in =
the
sympathetic mode from the upper centers tends to burn the lungs with oxygen=
, weaken
them with stress, and cause consumption. So it is just criminal to make a c=
hild
too loving. No child should be induced to love too much. It means derangeme=
nt
and death at last.
But beyond the primary physiological function-=
-and
it is the business of doctors to discover the relation between the function=
ing
of the primary organs and the dynamic psychic activity at the four primary =
consciousness-centers,--beyond
these physical functions, there are the activities which are half-psychic,
half-functional. Such as the five senses.
Of the five senses, four have their functionin=
g in
the face-region. The fifth, the sense of touch, is distributed all over the
body. But all have their roots in the four great primary centers of conscio=
usness.
From the constellation of your nerve-nodes, from the great field of your po=
les,
the nerves run out in every direction, ending on the surface of the body.
Inwardly this is an inextricable ramification and communication.
And yet the body is planned out in areas, ther=
e is
a definite area-control from the four centers. On the back the sense of tou=
ch
is not acute. There the voluntary centers act in resistance. But in the fro=
nt
of the body, the breast is one great field of sympathetic touch, the belly =
is
another. On these two fields the stimulus of touch is quite different, has a
quite different psychic quality and psychic result. The breast-touch is the
fine alertness of quivering curiosity, the belly-touch is a deep thrill of
delight and avidity. Correspondingly, the hands and arms are instruments of
superb delicate curiosity, and deliberate execution. Through the elbows and=
the
wrists flows the dynamic psychic current, and a dislocation in the current
between two individuals will cause a feeling of dislocation at the wrists a=
nd
elbows. On the lower plane, the legs and feet are instruments of unfathomab=
le
gratifications and repudiations. The thighs, the knees, the feet are intens=
ely
alive with love-desire, darkly and superbly drinking in the love-contact,
blindly. Or they are the great centers of resistance, kicking, repudiating.
Sudden flushing of great general sympathetic desire will make a man feel we=
ak
at the knees. Hatred will harden the tension of the knees like steel, and g=
rip
the feet like talons. Thus the fields of touch are four, two sympathetic fi=
elds
in front of the body from the throat to the feet, two resistant fields behi=
nd from
the neck to the heels.
There are two fields of touch, however, where =
the
distribution is not so simple: the face and the buttocks. Neither in the fa=
ce
nor in the buttocks is there one single mode of sense communication.
The face is of course the great window of the
self, the great opening of the self upon the world, the great gateway. The
lower body has its own gates of exit. But the bulk of our communication with
all the outer universe goes on through the face.
And every one of the windows or gates of the f=
ace
has its direct communication with each of the four great centers of the fir=
st
field of consciousness. Take the mouth, with the sense of taste. The mouth =
is
primarily the gate of the two chief sensual centers. It is the gateway to t=
he
belly and the loins. Through the mouth we eat and we drink. In the mouth we
have the sense of taste. At the lips, too, we kiss. And the kiss of the mou=
th
is the first sensual connection.
In the mouth also are the teeth. And the teeth=
are
the instruments of our sensual will. The growth of the teeth is controlled
entirely from the two great sensual centers below the diaphragm. But almost
entirely from the one center, the voluntary center. The growth and the life=
of the
teeth depend almost entirely on the lumbar ganglion. During the growth of t=
he
teeth the sympathetic mode is held in abeyance. There is a sort of arrest.
There is pain, there is diarrhoea, there is misery for the baby.
And we, in our age, have no rest with our teet=
h.
Our mouths are too small. For many ages we have been suppressing the avid,
negroid, sensual will. We have been converting ourselves into ideal creatur=
es, all
spiritually conscious, and active dynamically only on one plane, the upper,
spiritual plane. Our mouth has contracted, our teeth have become soft and
un-quickened. Where in us are the sharp and vivid teeth of the wolf, keen to
defend and devour? If we had them more, we should be happier. Where are the
white negroid teeth? Where? In our little pinched mouths they have no room.=
We
are sympathy-rotten, and spirit-rotten, and idea-rotten. We have forfeited =
our
flashing sensual power. And we have false teeth in our mouths. In the same =
way
the lips of our sensual desire go thinner and more meaningless, in the comp=
ression
of our upper will and our idea-driven impulse. Let us break the conscious,
self-conscious love-ideal, and we shall grow strong, resistant teeth once m=
ore,
and the teething of our young will not be the hell it is.
Teething is strictly the period when the volun=
tary
center of the lower plane first comes into full activity, and takes for a t=
ime
the precedence.
So, the mouth is the great sensual gate to the
lower body. But let us not forget it is also a gate by which we breathe, the
gate through which we speak and go impalpably forth to our object, the gate=
at which
we can kiss the pinched, delicate, spiritual kiss. Therefore, although the =
main
sensual gate of entrance to the lower body, it has its reference also to the
upper body.
Taste, the sense of taste, is an intake of a p=
ure
communication between us and a body from the outside world. It contains the
element of touch, and in this it refers to the cardiac plexus. But taste, q=
uâ
taste, refers purely to the solar plexus.
And then smell. The nostrils are the great gate
from the wide atmosphere of heaven to the lungs. The extreme sigh of yearni=
ng
we catch through the mouth. But the delicate nose advances always into the =
air,
our palpable communicator with the infinite air. Thus it has its first deli=
cate
root in the cardiac plexus, the root of its intake. And the root of the
delicate-proud exhalation, rejection, is in the thoracic ganglion. But the
nostrils have their other function of smell. Here the delicate nerve-ends r=
un
direct from the lower centers, from the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglio=
n,
or even deeper. There is the refined sensual intake when a scent is sweet.
There is the sensual repudiation when a scent is unsavoury. And just as the=
fullness
of the lips and the shape of the mouth depend on the development from the l=
ower
or the upper centers, the sensual or the spiritual, so does the shape of the
nose depend on the direct control of the deepest centers of consciousness. A
perfect nose is perhaps the result of a balance in the four modes. But what=
is
a perfect nose!--We only know that a short snub nose goes with an
over-sympathetic nature, not proud enough; while a long nose derives from t=
he
center of the upper will, the thoracic ganglion, our great center of curios=
ity,
and benevolent or objective control. A thick, squat nose is the sensual-sym=
pathetic
nose, and the high, arched nose the sensual voluntary nose, having the curv=
e of
repudiation, as when we turn up our nose from a bad smell, but also the pro=
ud
curve of haughtiness and subjective authority. The nose is one of the great=
est
indicators of character. That is to say, it almost inevitably indicates the
mode of predominant dynamic consciousness in the individual, the predominan=
t primary
center from which he lives.--When savages rub noses instead of kissing, they
are exchanging a more sensitive and a deeper sensual salute than our lip-to=
uch.
The eyes are the third great gateway of the
psyche. Here the soul goes in and out of the body, as a bird flying forth a=
nd
coming home. But the root of conscious vision is almost entirely in the bre=
ast.
When I go forth from my own eyes, in delight to dwell upon the world which =
is beyond
me, outside me, then I go forth from wide open windows, through which shows=
the
full and living lambent darkness of my present inward self. I go forth, and=
I
leave the lovely open darkness of my sensient self revealed; when I go fort=
h in
the wonder of vision to dwell upon the beloved, or upon the wonder of the
world, I go from the center of the glad breast, through the eyes, and who w=
ill
may look into the full soft darkness of me, rich with my undiscovered prese=
nce.
But if I am displeased, then hard and cold my self stands in my eyes, and
refuses any communication, any sympathy, but merely stares outwards. It is =
the motion
of cold objectivity from the thoracic ganglion. Or, from the same center of
will, cold but intense my eyes may watch with curiosity, as a cat watches a
fly. It may be into my curiosity will creep an element of warm gladness in =
the
wonder which I am beholding outside myself. Or it may be that my curiosity =
will
be purely and simply the cold, almost cruel curiosity of the upper will,
directed from the ganglion of the shoulders: such as is the acute attention=
of an
experimental scientist.
The eyes have, however, their sensual root as
well. But this is hard to transfer into language, as all our vision, our mo=
dern
Northern vision is in the upper mode of actual seeing.
There is a sensual way of beholding. There is =
the
dark, desirous look of a savage who apprehends only that which has direct r=
eference
to himself, that which stirs a certain dark yearning within his lower self.
Then his eye is fathomless blackness. But there is the dark eye which glanc=
es
with a certain fire, and has no depth. There is a keen quick vision which
watches, which beholds, but which never yields to the object outside: as a =
cat
watching its prey. The dark glancing look which knows the strangeness, the
danger of its object, the need to overcome the object. The eye which is not
wide open to study, to learn, but which powerfully, proudly or cautiously
glances, and knows the terror or the pure desirability of strangeness in th=
e object
it beholds. The savage is all in all in himself. That which he sees outside=
he
hardly notices, or, he sees as something odd, something automatically
desirable, something lustfully desirable, or something dangerous. What we c=
all
vision, that he has not.
We must compare the look in a horse's eye with=
the
look in a cow's. The eye of the cow is soft, velvety, receptive. She stands=
and
gazes with the strangest intent curiosity. She goes forth from herself in w=
onder.
The root of her vision is in her yearning breast. The same one hears when s=
he
moos. The same massive weight of passion is in a bull's breast; the passion=
to
go forth from himself. His strength is in his breast, his weapons are on his
head. The wonder is always outside him.
But the horse's eye is bright and glancing. His
curiosity is cautious, full of terror, or else aggressive and frightening f=
or
the object. The root of his vision is in his belly, in the solar plexus. An=
d he
fights with his teeth, and his heels, the sensual weapons.
Both these animals, however, are established in
the sympathetic mode. The life mode in both is sensitively sympathetic, or
preponderantly sympathetic. Those animals which like cats, wolves, tigers,
hawks, chiefly live from the great voluntary centers, these animals are, in=
our
sense of the word, almost visionless. Sight in them is sharpened or narrowed
down to a point: the object of prey. It is exclusive. They see no more than
this. And thus they see unthinkably far, unthinkably keenly.
Most animals, however, smell what they see: vi=
sion
is not very highly developed. They know better by the more direct contact of
scent.
And vision in us becomes faulty because we pro=
ceed
too much in one mode. We see too much, we attend too much. The dark, glanci=
ng sightlessness
of the intent savage, the narrowed vision of the cat, the single point of
vision of the hawk--these we do not know any more. We live far too much from
the sympathetic centers, without the balance from the voluntary mode. And we
live far, far too much from the upper sympathetic center and voluntary cent=
er,
in an endless objective curiosity. Sight is the least sensual of all the
senses. And we strain ourselves to see, see, see--everything, everything
through the eye, in one mode of objective curiosity. There is nothing insid=
e us,
we stare endlessly at the outside. So our eyes begin to fail; to retaliate =
on
us. We go short-sighted, almost in self-protection.
Hearing the last, and perhaps the deepest of t=
he
senses. And here there is no choice. In every other faculty we have the pow=
er
of rejection. We have a choice of vision. We can, if we choose, see in the
terms of the wonderful beyond, the world of light into which we go forth in=
joy
to lose ourselves in it. Or we can see, as the Egyptians saw, in the terms =
of
their own dark souls: seeing the strangeness of the creature outside, the g=
ulf
between it and them, but finally, its existence in terms of themselves. The=
y saw
according to their own unchangeable idea, subjectively, they did not go for=
th
from themselves to seek the wonder outside.
Those are the two chief ways of sympathetic
vision. We call our way the objective, the Egyptian the subjective. But
objective and subjective are words that depend absolutely on your starting
point. Spiritual and sensual are much more descriptive terms.
But there are, of course, also the two ways of
volitional vision. We can see with the endless modern critical sight, analy=
tic,
and at last deliberately ugly. Or we can see as the hawk sees the one
concentrated spot where beats the life-heart of our prey.
In the four modes of sight we have some choice=
. We
have some choice to refuse tastes or smells or touch. In hearing we have the
minimum of choice. Sound acts direct upon the great affective centers. We m=
ay voluntarily
quicken our hearing, or make it dull. But we have really no choice of what =
we
hear. Our will is eliminated. Sound acts direct, almost automatically, upon=
the
affective centers. And we have no power of going forth from the ear. We are
always and only recipient.
Nevertheless, sound acts upon us in various wa=
ys,
according to the four primary poles of consciousness. The singing of birds =
acts
almost entirely upon the centers of the breast. Birds, which live by flight=
, impelled
from the strong conscious-activity of the breast and shoulders, have become=
for
us symbols of the spirit, the upper mode of consciousness. Their legs have
become idle, almost insentient twigs. Only the tail flirts from the center =
of
the sensual will.
But their singing acts direct upon the upper, =
or
spiritual centers in us. So does almost all our music, which is all Christi=
an
in tendency. But modern music is analytical, critical, and it has discovered
the power of ugliness. Like our martial music, it is of the upper plane, li=
ke
our martial songs, our fifes and our brass-bands. These act direct upon the
thoracic ganglion. Time was, however, when music acted upon the sensual cen=
ters
direct. We hear it still in savage music, and in the roll of drums, and in =
the
roaring of lions, and in the howling of cats. And in some voices still we h=
ear
the deeper resonance of the sensual mode of consciousness. But the tendency=
is
for everything to be brought on to the upper plane, whilst the lower plane =
is
just worked automatically from the upper.
=
=
We can
now see what is the true goal of education for a child. It is the full and
harmonious development of the four primary modes of consciousness, always w=
ith
regard to the individual nature of the child.
The goal is not ideal. The aim is not mental
consciousness. We want effectual human beings, not conscious ones. The final
aim is not to know, but to be. There never was a more risky motto than that:
Know thyself. You've got to know yourself as far as possible. But not just =
for
the sake of knowing. You've got to know yourself so that you can at last be
yourself. "Be yourself" is the last motto.
The whole field of dynamic and effectual consc=
iousness
is always pre-mental, non-mental. Not even the most knowing man that ever l=
ived
would know how he would be feeling next week; whether some new and utterly
shattering impulse would have arisen in him and laid his nicely-conceived s=
elf
in ruins. It is the impulse we have to live by, not the ideals or the idea.=
But
we have to know ourselves pretty thoroughly before we can break the automat=
ism
of ideals and conventions. The savage in a state of nature is one of the mo=
st conventional
of creatures. So is a child. Only through fine delicate knowledge can we
recognize and release our impulses. Now our whole aim has been to force each
individual to a maximum of mental control, and mental consciousness. Our po=
or
little plans of children are put into horrible forcing-beds, called schools,
and the young idea is there forced to shoot. It shoots, poor thing, like a
potato in a warm cellar. One mass of pallid sickly ideas and ideals. And no
root, no life. The ideas shoot, hard enough, in our sad offspring, but they=
shoot
at the expense of life itself. Never was such a mistake. Mental consciousne=
ss
is a purely individual affair. Some men are born to be highly and delicately
conscious. But for the vast majority, much mental consciousness is simply a
catastrophe, a blight. It just stops their living.
Our business, at the present, is to prevent at=
all
cost the young idea from shooting. The ideal mind, the brain, has become the
vampire of modern life, sucking up the blood and the life. There is hardly =
an original
thought or original utterance possible to us. All is sickly repetition of
stale, stale ideas.
Let all schools be closed at once. Keep only a=
few
technical training establishments, nothing more. Let humanity lie fallow, f=
or
two generations at least. Let no child learn to read, unless it learns by i=
tself,
out of its own individual persistent desire.
That is my serious admonition, gentle reader. =
But
I am not so flighty as to imagine you will pay any heed. But if I thought y=
ou
would, I should feel my hope surge up. And if you don't pay any heed, calam=
ity
will at length shut your schools for you, sure enough.
The process of transfer from the primary
consciousness to recognized mental consciousness is a mystery like every ot=
her
transfer. Yet it follows its own laws. And here we begin to approach the
confines of orthodox psychology, upon which we have no desire to trespass. =
But this
we can say. The degree of transfer from primary to mental consciousness var=
ies
with every individual. But in most individuals the natural degree is very l=
ow.
The process of transfer from primary conscious=
ness
is called sublimation, the sublimating of the potential body of knowledge w=
ith the
definite reality of the idea. And with this process we have identified all
education. The very derivation of the Latin word education shows us. Of cou=
rse
it should mean the leading forth of each nature to its fullness. But with u=
s,
fools that we are, it is the leading forth of the primary consciousness, the
potential or dynamic consciousness, into mental consciousness, which is fin=
ite
and static. Now before we set out so gayly to lead our children en bloc out=
of the
dynamic into the static way of consciousness, let us consider a moment what=
we
are doing.
A child in the womb can have no idea of the mo=
ther.
I think orthodox psychology will allow us so much. And yet the child in the
womb must be dynamically conscious of the mother. Otherwise how could it ma=
intain
a definite and progressively developing relation to her?
This consciousness, however, is utterly non-id=
eal,
non-mental, purely dynamic, a matter of dynamic polarized intercourse of vi=
tal vibrations,
as an exchange of wireless messages which are never translated from the
pulse-rhythm into speech, because they have no need to be. It is a dynamic =
polarized
intercourse between the great primary nuclei in the foetus and the
corresponding nuclei in the dynamic maternal psyche.
This form of consciousness is established at
conception, and continues long after birth. Nay, it continues all life long.
But the particular interchange of dynamic consciousness between mother and
child suffers no interruption at birth. It continues almost the same. The c=
hild
has no conception whatsoever of the mother. It cannot see her, for its eye =
has
no focus. It can hear her, because hearing needs no transmission into conce=
pt,
but it has no oral notion of sounds. It knows her. But only by a form of vi=
tal
dynamic correspondence, a sort of magnetic interchange. The idea does not
intervene at all.
Gradually, however, the dark shadow of our obj=
ect
begins to loom in the formless mind of the infant. The idea of the mother i=
s,
as it were, gradually photographed on the cerebral plasm. It begins with th=
e faintest
shadow--but the figure is gradually developed through years of experience. =
It
is never quite completed.
How does the figure of the mother gradually
develop as a conception in the child mind? It develops as the result of the
positive and negative reaction from the primary centers of consciousness. F=
rom
the first great center of sympathy the child is drawn to a lovely oneing wi=
th
the mother. From the first great center of will comes the independent
self-assertion which locates the mother as something outside, something
objective. And as a result of this twofold notion, a twofold increase in the
child. First, the dynamic establishment of the individual consciousness in =
the
infant: and then the first shadow of a mental conception of the mother, in =
the
infant brain. The development of the original mind in every child and every=
man
always and only follows from the dual fulfillment in the dynamic consciousn=
ess.
But mark further. Each time, after the fourfold
interchange between two dynamic polarized lives, there results a developmen=
t in
the individuality and a sublimation into consciousness, both simultaneously=
in
each party: and this dual development causes at once a diminution in the
dynamic polarity between the two parties. That is, as its individuality and=
its
mental concept of the mother develop in the child, there is a corresponding=
waning
of the dynamic relation between the child and the mother. And this is the
natural progression of all love. As we have said before, the accomplishment=
of individuality
never finally exhausts the dynamic flow between parents and child. In the s=
ame
way, a child can never have a finite conception of either of its parents. It
can have a very much more finite, finished conception of its aunts or its
friends. The portrait of the parent can never be quite completed in the min=
d of
the son or daughter. As long as time lasts it must be left unfinished.
Nevertheless, the inevitable photography of ti=
me
upon the mental plasm does print at last a very substantial portrait of the
parent, a very well-filled concept in the child mind. And the nearer a
conception comes towards finality, the nearer does the dynamic relation, ou=
t of
which this concept has arisen, draw to a close. To know, is to lose. When I
have a finished mental concept of a beloved, or a friend, then the love and=
the
friendship is dead. It falls to the level of an acquaintance. As soon as I =
have
a finished mental conception, a full idea even of myself, then dynamically =
I am
dead. To know is to die.
But knowledge and death are part of our natural
development. Only, of course, most things can never be known by us in full.
Which means we do never absolutely die, even to our parents. So that Jesus'
question to His mother, "Woman, what have I to do with thee!"--wh=
ile expressing
a major truth, still has an exaggerated sound, which comes from its denial =
of
the minor truth.
This progression from dynamic relationship tow=
ards
a finished individuality and a finished mental concept is carried on from t=
he four
great primary centers through the correspondence medium of all the senses a=
nd
sensibilities. First of all, the child knows the mother only through
touch--perfect and immediate contact. And yet, from the moment of conceptio=
n,
the egg-cell repudiated complete adhesion and even communication, and asser=
ted
its individual integrity. The child in the womb, perfect a contact though it
may have with the mother, is all the time also dynamically polarized against
this contact. From the first moment, this relation in touch has a dual
polarity, and, no doubt, a dual mode. It is a fourfold interchange of
consciousness, the moment the egg-cell has made its two spontaneous divisio=
ns.
As soon as the child is born, there is a real
severance. The contact of touch is interrupted, it now becomes occasional o=
nly.
True, the dynamic flow between mother and child is not severed when simple =
physical
contact is missing. Though mother and child may not touch, still the dynamic
flow continues between them. The mother knows her child, feels her bowels a=
nd
her breast drawn to it, even if it be a hundred miles away. But if the
severance continue long, the dynamic flow begins to die, both in mother and
child. It wanes fairly quickly--and perhaps can never be fully revived. The
dynamic relation between parent and child may fairly easily fall into
quiescence, a static condition.
For a full dynamic relationship it is necessary
that there be actual contact. The nerves run from the four primary dynamos,=
and
end with live ends all over the body. And it is necessary to bring the live=
ends
of the nerves of the child into contact with the live ends of corresponding
nerves in the mother, so that a pure circuit is established. Wherever a pure
circuit is established, there occurs a pure development in the individual
creation, and this is inevitably accompanied by sensation; and sensation is=
the
first term of mental knowledge.
So, from the field of the breast and arms, the
upper circuit, and from the field of the knees and feet and belly, the lower
circuit.
And then, the moment a child is born, the face=
is
alive. And the face communicates direct with both planes of primary
consciousness. The moment a child is born, it begins to grope for the breas=
t.
And suddenly a new great circuit is established, the four poles all working=
at
once, as the child sucks. There is the profound desirousness of the lower
center of sympathy, and the superior avidity of the center of will, and at =
the
same time, the cleaving yearning to the nipple, and the tiny curiosity of l=
ips
and gums. The nipple of the mother's breast is one of the great gates of the
body, hence of the living psyche. In the nipple terminate vivid nerves which
flash their very powerful vibrations through the mouth of the child and deep
into its four great poles of being and knowing. Even the nipples of the man=
are
gateways to the great dynamic flow: still gateways.
Touch, taste, and smell are now active in the
baby. And these senses, so-called, are strictly sensations. They are the fi=
rst
term of the child's mental knowledge. And on these three cerebral reactions=
the
foundation of the future mind is laid.
The moment there is a perfect polarized circuit
between the first four poles of dynamic consciousness, at that moment does =
the
mind, the terminal station, flash into cognition. The first cognition is me=
rely
sensation: sensation and the remembrance of sensation being the first eleme=
nt
in all knowing and in all conception.
The circuit of touch, taste, and smell must be
well established, before the eyes begin actually to see. All mental knowled=
ge
is built up of sensation and of memory. It is the continually recurring sen=
sation
of the touch of the mother which forms the basis of the first conception of=
the
mother. After that, the gradually discriminated taste of the mother, and sc=
ent
of the mother. Till gradually sight and hearing develop and largely usurp t=
he
first three senses, as medium of correspondence and of knowledge.
And while, of course, the sensational knowledg=
e is
being secreted in the brain, in some much more mysterious way the living
individuality of the child is being developed in the four first nuclei, the=
four
great nerve-centers of the primary field of consciousness and being.
As time goes on, the child learns to see the
mother. At first he sees her face as a blur, and though he knows her, knows=
her
by a direct glow of communication, as if her face were a warm glowing life-=
lamp
which rejoiced him. But gradually, as the circuit of touch, taste, and smell
become powerfully established; gradually, as the individual develops in the
child, and so retreats towards isolation; gradually, as the child stands mo=
re immune
from the mother, the circuit of correspondence extends, and the eyes now
communicate across space, the ears begin to discriminate sounds. Last of all
develops discriminate hearing.
Now gradually the picture of the mother is
transferred to the child's mind, and the sound of the first baby-words is
imprinted. And as the child learns to discriminate visually, objectively,
between the mother and the nurse, he learns to choose, and becomes individu=
ally
free. And still, the dynamic correspondence is not finished. It only changes
its circuit.
While the brain is registering sensations, the
four dynamic centers are coming into perfect relation. Or rather, as we see,
the reverse is the case. As the dynamic centers come into perfect relation,=
the
mind registers and remembers sensations, and begins consciously to know. But
the great field of activity is still and always the dynamic field. When a c=
hild
learns to walk, it learns almost entirely from the solar plexus and the lum=
bar
ganglion, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion balancing the upper
body.
There is a perfected circuit of polarity. The =
two
lower centers are the positive, the two upper the negative poles. And so the
child strikes out with his feet for the earth, presses, and strikes away ag=
ain
from the earth, the two upper centers meanwhile corresponding implicitly in=
the
balance of the upper body. It is a chain of spontaneous activity in the four
primary centers, establishing a circuit through the whole body. But the
positive poles are the lower centers. And the brain has probably nothing at=
all
to do with it. Even the desire to walk is not born in the brain, but in the
primary nuclei.
The same with the use of the hands and arms. It
means the establishment of a pure circuit between the four centers, the two=
upper
poles now being the positive, the lower the negative poles, and the hands t=
he
live end of the wire. Again the brain is not concerned. Probably, even in t=
he
first deliberate grasping of an object, the brain is not concerned. Not unt=
il
there is an element of recognition and sensation-memory.
All our primal activity originates and circula=
tes
purely in the four great nerve centers. All our active desire, our genuine
impulse, our love, our hope, our yearning, everything originates mysterious=
ly
at these four great centers or well-heads of our existence: everything vital
and dynamic. The mind can only register that which results from the emanati=
on
of the dynamic impulse and the collision or communion of this impulse with =
its
object.
So now we see that we can never know ourselves.
Knowledge is to consciousness what the signpost is to the traveler: just an
indication of the way which has been traveled before. Knowledge is not even=
in direct
proportion to being. There may be great knowledge of chemistry in a man who=
is
a rather poor being: and those who know, even in wisdom like Solomon, are o=
ften
at the end of the matter of living, not at the beginning. As a matter of fa=
ct,
David did the living, the dynamic achievement. To Solomon was left the cons=
ummation
and the finish, and the dying down.
Yet we must know, if only in order to learn no=
t to
know. The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know.
That is, how not to interfere. That is, how to live dynamically, from the g=
reat
Source, and not statically, like machines driven by ideas and principles fr=
om
the head, or automatically, from one fixed desire. At last, knowledge must =
be
put into its true place in the living activity of man. And we must know dee=
ply,
in order even to do that.
So a new conception of the meaning of educatio=
n.
Education means leading out the individual nat=
ure
in each man and woman to its true fullness. You can't do that by stimulating
the mind. To pump education into the mind is fatal. That which sublimates f=
rom the
dynamic consciousness into the mental consciousness has alone any value. Th=
is,
in most individuals, is very little indeed. So that most individuals, under=
a
wise government, would be most carefully protected from all vicious attempt=
s to
inject extraneous ideas into them. Every extraneous idea, which has no inhe=
rent
root in the dynamic consciousness, is as dangerous as a nail driven into a
young tree. For the mass of people, knowledge must be symbolical, mythical,
dynamic. This means, you must have a higher, responsible, conscious class: =
and then
in varying degrees the lower classes, varying in their degree of consciousn=
ess.
Symbols must be true from top to bottom. But the interpretation of the symb=
ols
must rest, degree after degree, in the higher, responsible, conscious class=
es.
To those who cannot divest themselves again of mental consciousness and
definite ideas, mentality and ideas are death, nails through their hands and
feet.
=
=
The
first process of education is obviously not a mental process. When a mother
talks to a baby, she is not encouraging its little mind to think. When she =
is
coaxing her child to walk, she is not making a theoretic exposition of the
science of equilibration. She crouches before the child, at a little distan=
ce,
and spreads her hands. "Come, baby--come to mother. Come! Baby, walk! =
Yes,
walk! Walk to mother! Come along. A little walk to its mother. Come! Come t=
hen!
Why yes, a pretty baby! Oh, he can toddle! Yes--yes--No, don't be frightene=
d, a
dear. No--Come to mother--" and she catches his little pinafore by the=
tip--and
the infant lurches forward. "There! There! A beautiful walk! A beautif=
ul
walker, yes! Walked all the way to mother, baby did. Yes, he did--"
Now who will tell me that this talk has any rh=
yme
or reason? Not a spark of reason. Yet a real rhyme: or rhythm, much more
important. The song and the urge of the mother's voice plays direct on the =
affective
centers of the child, a wonderful stimulus and tuition. The words hardly ma=
tter.
True, this constant repetition in the end forms a mental association. At the
moment they have no mental significance at all for the baby. But they ring =
with
a strange palpitating music in his fluttering soul, and lift him into motio=
n.
And this is the way to educate children: the
instinctive way of mothers. There should be no effort made to teach childre=
n to
think, to have ideas. Only to lift them and urge them into dynamic activity.
The voice of dynamic sound, not the words of understanding. Damn understand=
ing.
Gestures, and touch, and expression of the face, not theory. Never have ide=
as
about children--and never have ideas for them.
If we are going to teach children we must teach
them first to move. And not by rule or mental dictation. Horror! But by pla=
ying
and teasing and anger, and amusement. A child must learn to move blithe and
free and proud. It must learn the fullness of spontaneous motion. And this =
it
can only learn by continuous reaction from all the centers, through all the
emotions. A child must learn to contain itself. It must learn to sit still =
if
need be. Part of the first phase of education is the learning to stay still=
and
be physically self-contained. Then a child must learn to be alone, and to
adventure alone, and to play alone. Any peevish clinging should be quite
roughly rebuffed. From the very first day, throw a child back on its own re=
sources--even
a little cruelly sometimes. But don't neglect it, don't have a negative
attitude to it. Play with it, tease it and roll it over as a dog her puppy,
mock it when it is too timorous, laugh at it, scold it when it really bothe=
rs
you--for a child must learn not to bother another person--and when it makes=
you
genuinely angry, spank it soundly. But always remember that it is a single
little soul by itself; and that the responsibility for the wise, warm
relationship is yours, the adult's.
Then always watch its deportment. Above all th=
ings
encourage a straight backbone and proud shoulders. Above all things despise=
a slovenly
movement, an ugly bearing and unpleasing manner. And make a mock of petulan=
ce
and of too much timidity.
We are imbeciles to start bothering about love=
and
so forth in a child. Forget utterly that there is such a thing as emotional=
reciprocity.
But never forget your own honor as an adult individual towards a small
individual. It is a question of honor, not of love.
A tree grows straight when it has deep roots a=
nd
is not too stifled. Love is a spontaneous thing, coming out of the spontane=
ous
effectual soul. As a deliberate principle it is an unmitigated evil. Also m=
orality
which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil. A child wh=
ich
is proud and free in its movements, in all its deportment, will be quite as
moral as need be. Honor is an instinct, a superb instinct which should be k=
ept
keenly alive. Immorality, vice, crime, these come from a suppression or a
collapse at one or other of the great primary centers. If one of these cent=
ers
fails to maintain its true polarity, then there is a physical or psychic de=
rangement,
or both. And viciousness or crime are the result of a derangement in the pr=
imary
system. Pure morality is only an instinctive adjustment which the soul make=
s in
every circumstance, adjusting one thing to another livingly, delicately,
sensitively. There can be no law. Therefore, at every cost and charge keep =
the
first four centers alive and alert, active, and vivid in reaction. And then=
you
need fear no perversion. What we have done, in our era, is, first, we have
tried as far as possible to suppress or subordinate the two sensual centers=
. We
have so unduly insisted on and exaggerated the upper spiritual or selfless =
mode--the
living in the other person and through the other person--that we have caused
already a dangerous over-balance in the natural psyche.
To correct this we go one worse, and try to ru=
le
ourselves more and more by the old ideas of sympathy and benevolence. We th=
ink
that love and benevolence will cure anything. Whereas love and benevolence =
are our
poison, poison to the giver, and still more poison to the receiver. Poison =
only
because there is practically no spontaneous love left in the world. It is a=
ll
will, the fatal love-will and insatiable morbid curiosity. The pure sympath=
etic
mode of love long ago broke down. There is now only deadly, exaggerated
volition.
This is also why general education should be
suppressed as soon as possible. We have fallen into a state of fixed, deadly
will. Everything we do and say to our children in school tends simply to fi=
x in
them the same deadly will, under the pretence of pure love. Our idealism is=
the
clue to our fixed will. Love, beauty, benevolence, progress, these are the
words we use. But the principle we evoke is a principle of barren, sanctifi=
ed
compulsion of all life. We want to put all life under compulsion. "How=
to
outwit the nerves," for example.--And therefore, to save the children =
as
far as possible, elementary education should be stopped at once.
No child should be sent to any sort of public
institution before the age of ten years. If I could but advise, I would adv=
ise
that this notice should be sent through the length and breadth of the land.=
"Parents, t=
he
State can no longer be responsible for the mind and
character of your children. From the first day of the coming =
year,
all schools will be closed for an indefinite
period. Fathers, see that your boys are trained to be men.
Mothers, see that your daughters are trained to be women.
"All school=
s will
shortly be converted either into public workshops o=
r into
gymnasia. No child will be admitted into the worksho=
ps
under ten years of age. Active training in primitive m=
odes
of fighting and gymnastics will be compulsory =
for
all boys over ten years of age.
"All girls =
over
ten years of age must attend at one domestic workshop. A=
ll
girls over ten years of age may, in addition, attend at o=
ne
workshop of skilled labor, or of technical industry, o=
r of
art. Admission for three months' probation.
"All boys o=
ver
ten years of age must attend at one workshop of domestic
crafts, and at one workshop of skilled labor, or of technical
industry, or of art. A boy may choose, with his parents' co=
nsent,
his school of labor, or technical industry or art, but=
the
directors reserve the right to transfer him to a more
suitable department, if necessary, after a three months'
probation.
"It is the
intention of this State to form a body of active, energetic
citizens. The danger of a helpless, presumptuous, news-paper-=
reading
population is universally recognized.
"All elemen=
tary
education is left in the hands of the parents, sa=
ve
such as is necessary to the different branches of industry=
.
"Schools of
mental culture are free to all individuals over fourteen ye=
ars of
age.
"Universiti=
es are
free to all who obtain the first culture degree.&quo=
t;
The fact is, our process of universal educatio=
n is
to-day so uncouth, so psychologically barbaric, that it is the most terrible
menace to the existence of our race. We seize hold of our children, and by =
parrot-compulsion
we force into them a set of mental tricks. By unnatural and unhealthy
compulsion we force them into a certain amount of cerebral activity. And th=
en,
after a few years, with a certain number of windmills in their heads, we tu=
rn
them loose, like so many inferior Don Quixotes, to make a mess of life. All
that they have learnt in their heads has no reference at all to their dynam=
ic
souls. The windmills spin and spin in a wind of words, Dulcinea del Toboso =
beckons
round every corner, and our nation of inferior Quixotes jumps on and off
tram-cars, trains, bicycles, motor-cars, buses, in one mad chase of the div=
ine
Dulcinea, who is all the time chewing chocolates and feeling very, very bor=
ed.
It is no use telling the poor devils to stop. They read in the newspapers a=
bout
more Dulcineas and more chivalry due to them and more horrid persons who in=
jure
the fair fame of these bored females. And round they skelter, after their o=
wn
tails. That is, when they are not forced to grind out their lives for a wag=
e. Though
work is the only thing that prevents our masses from going quite mad.
To tell the truth, ideas are the most dangerous
germs mankind has ever been injected with. They are introduced into the bra=
in
by injection, in schools and by means of newspapers, and then we are done f=
or.
An idea which is merely introduced into the br=
ain,
and started spinning there like some outrageous insect, is the cause of all=
our
misery to-day. Instead of living from the spontaneous centers, we live from=
the
head. We chew, chew, chew at some theory, some idea. We grind, grind, grind=
in
our mental consciousness, till we are beside ourselves. Our primary affecti=
ve
centers, our centers of spontaneous being, are so utterly ground round and
automatized that they squeak in all stages of disharmony and incipient
collapse. We are a people--and not we alone--of idiots, imbeciles and
epileptics, and we don't even know we are raving.
And all is due, directly and solely, to that
hateful germ we call the Ideal. The Ideal is always evil, no matter what id=
eal
it be. No idea should ever be raised to a governing throne.
This does not mean that man should immediately=
cut
off his head and try to develop a pair of eyes in his breasts. But it does =
mean
this: that an idea is just the final concrete or registered result of livin=
g dynamic
interchange and reactions: that no idea is ever perfectly expressed until i=
ts
dynamic cause is finished; and that to continue to put into dynamic effect =
an
already perfected idea means the nullification of all living activity, the
substitution of mechanism, and all the resultant horrors of ennui, ecstasy,
neurasthenia, and a collapsing psyche.
The whole tree of our idea of life and living =
is
dead. Then let us leave off hanging ourselves and our children from its
branches like medlars.
The idea, the actual idea, must rise ever fres=
h,
ever displaced, like the leaves of a tree, from out of the quickness of the
sap, and according to the forever incalculable effluence of the great dynam=
ic centers
of life. The tree of life is a gay kind of tree that is forever dropping its
leaves and budding out afresh, quite different ones. If the last lot were
thistle leaves, the next lot may be vine. You never can tell with the Tree =
of
Life.
So we come back to that precious child who cos=
ts
us such a lot of ink. By what right, I ask you, are we going to inject into=
him
our own disease-germs of ideas and infallible motives? By the right of the =
diseased,
who want to infect everybody.
There are few, few people in whom the living
impulse and reaction develops and sublimates into mental consciousness. The=
re
are all kinds of trees in the forest. But few of them indeed bear the apple=
s of
knowledge. The modern world insists, however, that every individual shall b=
ear
the apples of knowledge. So we go through the forest of mankind, cut back e=
very
tree, and try to graft it into an apple-tree. A nice wood of monsters we ma=
ke
by so doing.
It is not the nature of most men to know and to understand and to reason very far. Therefore, why should they make a preten= se of it? It is the nature of some few men to reason, then let them reason. Th= ose whose nature it is to be rational will instinctively ask why and wherefore, and w= restle with themselves for an answer. But why every Tom, Dick and Harry should have the why and wherefore of the universe rammed into him, and should be allowe= d to draw the conclusion hence that he is the ideal person and responsible for t= he universe, I don't know. It is a lie anyway--for neither the whys nor the wherefores are his own, and he is but a parrot with his nut of a universe.<= o:p>
Why should we cram the mind of a child with fa=
cts
that have nothing to do with his own experiences, and have no relation to h=
is
own dynamic activity? Let us realize that every extraneous idea effectually=
introduced
into a man's mind is a direct obstruction of his dynamic activity. Every id=
ea
which is introduced from outside into a man's mind, and which does not
correspond to his own dynamic nature, is a fatal stumbling-block for that m=
an:
is a cause of arrest for his true individual activity, and a derangement to=
his
psychic being.
For instance, if I teach a man the idea that a=
ll
men are equal. Now this idea has no foundation in experience, but is logica=
lly
deduced from certain ethical or philosophic principles. But there is a dise=
ase of
idealism in the world, and we all are born with it. Particularly teachers a=
re
born with it. So they seize on the idea of equality, and proceed to instil =
it.
With what result? Your man is no longer a man, living his own life from his=
own
spontaneous centers. He is a theoretic imbecile trying to frustrate and
dislocate all life.
It is the death of all life to force a pure id=
ea
into practice. Life must be lived from the deep, self-responsible spontaneo=
us
centers of every individual, in a vital, non-ideal circuit of dynamic relat=
ion between
individuals. The passions or desires which are thought-born are deadly. Any
particular mode of passion or desire which receives an exclusive ideal sanc=
tion
at once becomes poisonous.
If this is true for men, it is much more true =
for
women. Teach a woman to act from an idea, and you destroy her womanhood for
ever. Make a woman self-conscious, and her soul is barren as a sandbag. Why
were we driven out of Paradise? Why did we fall into this gnawing disease o=
f unappeasable
dissatisfaction? Not because we sinned. Ah, no. All the animals in Paradise
enjoyed the sensual passion of coition. Not because we sinned. But because =
we
got our sex into our head.
When Eve ate that particular apple, she became
aware of her own womanhood, mentally. And mentally she began to experiment =
with
it. She has been experimenting ever since. So has man. To the rage and horr=
or of
both of them.
These sexual experiments are really anathema. =
But
once a woman is sexually self-conscious, what is she to do? There it is, sh=
e is
born with the disease of her own self-consciousness, as was her mother befo=
re
her. She is bound to experiment and try one idea after another, in the long=
run
always to her own misery. She is bound to have fixed one, and then another =
idea
of herself, herself as woman. First she is the noble spouse of a
not-quite-so-noble male: then a Mater Dolorosa: then a ministering Angel: t=
hen
a competent social unit, a Member of Parliament or a Lady Doctor or a platf=
orm
speaker: and all the while, as a side show, she is the Isolde of some Trist=
an,
or the Guinevere of some Lancelot, or the Fata Morgana of all men--in her o=
wn idea.
She can't stop having an idea of herself. She can't get herself out of her =
own
head. And there she is, functioning away from her own head and her own
consciousness of herself and her own automatic self-will, till the whole man
and woman game has become just a hell, and men with any backbone would rath=
er
kill themselves than go on with it--or kill somebody else.
Yet we are going to inculcate more and more
self-consciousness, teach every little Mary to be more and more a nice litt=
le
Mary out of her own head, and every little Joseph to theorize himself up to=
the
scratch.
And the point lies here. There will have to co=
me
an end. Every race which has become self-conscious and idea-bound in the pa=
st
has perished. And then it has all started afresh, in a different way, with =
another
race. And man has never learnt any better. We are really far, far more
life-stupid than the dead Greeks or the lost Etruscans. Our day is pretty
short, and closing fast. We can pass, and another race can follow later.
But there is another alternative. We still hav=
e in
us the power to discriminate between our own idealism, our own self-conscio=
us
will, and that other reality, our own true spontaneous self. Certainly we a=
re
so overloaded and diseased with ideas that we can't get well in a minute. B=
ut we
can set our faces stubbornly against the disease, once we recognize it. The
disease of love, the disease of "spirit," the disease of niceness=
and
benevolence and feeling good on our own behalf and good on somebody else's
behalf. Pah, it is all a gangrene. We can retreat upon the proud, isolate s=
elf,
and remain there alone, like lepers, till we are cured of this ghastly white
disease of self-conscious idealism.
And we really can make a move on our children's
behalf. We really can refrain from thrusting our children any more into tho=
se
hot-beds of the self-conscious disease, schools. We really can prevent thei=
r eating
much more of the tissues of leprosy, newspapers and books. For a time, there
should be no compulsory teaching to read and write at all. The great mass of
humanity should never learn to read and write--never.
And instead of this gnawing, gnawing disease of
mental consciousness and awful, unhealthy craving for stimulus and for acti=
on,
we must substitute genuine action. The war was really not a bad beginning. =
But we
went out under the banners of idealism, and now the men are home again, the
virus is more active than ever, rotting their very souls.
The mass of the people will never mentally
understand. But they will soon instinctively fall into line.
Let us substitute action, all kinds of action,=
for
the mass of people, in place of mental activity. Even twelve hours' work a =
day
is better than a newspaper at four in the afternoon and a grievance for the
rest of the evening. But particularly let us take care of the children. At =
all
cost, try to prevent a girl's mind from dwelling on herself, Make her act,
work, play: assume a rule over her girlhood. Let her learn the domestic art=
s in
their perfection. Let us even artificially set her to spin and weave. Anyth=
ing
to keep her busy, to prevent her reading and becoming self-conscious. Let us
awake as soon as possible to the repulsive machine quality of machine-made
things. They smell of death. And let us insist that the home is sacred, the
hearth, and the very things of the home. Then keep the girls apart from any=
familiarity
or being "pals" with the boys. The nice clean intimacy which we n=
ow
so admire between the sexes is sterilizing. It makes neuters. Later on, no
deep, magical sex-life is possible.
The same with the boys. First and foremost
establish a rule over them, a proud, harsh, manly rule. Make them know that=
at
every moment they are in the shadow of a proud, strong, adult authority. Let
them be soldiers, but as individuals not machine units. There are wars in t=
he future,
great wars, which not machines will finally decide, but the free, indomitab=
le
life spirit. No more wars under the banners of the ideal, and in the spirit=
of
sacrifice. But wars in the strength of individual men. And then, pure indiv=
idualistic
training to fight, and preparation for a whole new way of life, a new socie=
ty.
Put money into its place, and science and industry. The leaders must stand =
for life,
and they must not ask the simple followers to point out the direction. When=
the
leaders assume responsibility they relieve the followers forever of the bur=
den
of finding a way. Relieved of this hateful incubus of responsibility for
general affairs, the populace can again become free and happy and spontaneo=
us,
leaving matters to their superiors. No newspapers--the mass of the people n=
ever
learning to read. The evolving once more of the great spontaneous gestures =
of life.
We can't go on as we are. Poor, nerve-worn
creatures, fretting our lives away and hating to die because we have never
lived. The secret is, to commit into the hands of the sacred few the
responsibility which now lies like torture on the mass. Let the few, the
leaders, be increasingly responsible for the whole. And let the mass be fre=
e: free,
save for the choice of leaders.
Leaders--this is what mankind is craving for.<= o:p>
But men must be prepared to obey, body and sou=
l,
once they have chosen the leader. And let them choose the leader for life's
sake only.
Begin then--there is a beginning.
=
The
one thing we have to avoid, then, even while we carry on our own old proces=
s of
education, is this development of the powers of so-called self-expression i=
n a
child. Let us beware of artificially stimulating his self-consciousness and=
his
so-called imagination. All that we do is to pervert the child into a ghastly
state of self-consciousness, making him affectedly try to show off as we wi=
sh
him to show off. The moment the least little trace of self-consciousness en=
ters
in a child, good-by to everything except falsity.
Much better just pound away at the ABC and sim= ple arithmetic and so on. The modern methods do make children sharp, give them a sort of slick finesse, but it is the beginning of the mischief. It ends in = the great "unrest" of a nervous, hysterical proletariat. Begin to teach a c= hild of five to "understand." To understand the sun and moon and daisy= and the secrets of procreation, bless your soul. Understanding all the way.--And when the child is twenty he'll have a hysterical understanding of his own invented grievance, and there's an end of him. Understanding is the devil.<= o:p>
A child mustn't understand things. He must have
them his own way. His vision isn't ours. When a boy of eight sees a horse, =
he
doesn't see the correct biological object we intend him to see. He sees a b=
ig living
presence of no particular shape with hair dangling from its neck and four l=
egs.
If he puts two eyes in the profile, he is quite right. Because he does not =
see
with optical, photographic vision. The image on his retina is not the image=
of
his consciousness. The image on his retina just does not go into him. His
unconsciousness is filled with a strong, dark, vague prescience of a powerf=
ul
presence, a two-eyed, four-legged, long-maned presence looming imminent.
And to force the boy to see a correct one-eyed
horse-profile is just like pasting a placard in front of his vision. It sim=
ply
kills his inward seeing. We don't want him to see a proper horse. The child=
is not
a little camera. He is a small vital organism which has direct dynamic rapp=
ort
with the objects of the outer universe. He perceives from his breast and his
abdomen, with deep-sunken realism, the elemental nature of the creature. So
that to this day a Noah's Ark tree is more real than a Corot tree or a
Constable tree: and a flat Noah's Ark cow has a deeper vital reality than e=
ven
a Cuyp cow.
The mode of vision is not one and final. The m=
ode
of vision is manifold. And the optical image is a mere vibrating blur to a =
child--and,
indeed, to a passionate adult. In this vibrating blur the soul sees its own
true correspondent. It sees, in a cow, horns and squareness, and a long tai=
l.
It sees, for a horse, a mane, and a long face, round nose, and four legs. A=
nd
in each case a darkly vital presence. Now horns and squareness and a long t=
hin
ox-tail, these are the fearful and wonderful elements of the cow-form, which
the dynamic soul perfectly perceives. The ideal-image is just outside natur=
e,
for a child--something false. In a picture, a child wants elemental recogni=
tion,
and not correctness or expression, or least of all, what we call understand=
ing.
The child distorts inevitably and dynamically. But the dynamic abstraction =
is
more than mental. If a huge eye sits in the middle of the cheek, in a child=
's
drawing, this shows that the deep dynamic consciousness of the eye, its
relative exaggeration, is the life-truth, even if it is a scientific falseh=
ood.
On the other hand, what on earth is the good of
saying to a child, "The world is a flattened sphere, like an orange.&q=
uot;
It is simply pernicious. You had much better say the world is a poached egg=
in
a frying pan. That might have some dynamic meaning. The only thing about the
flattened orange is that the child just sees this orange disporting itself =
in
blue air, and never bothers to associate it with the earth he treads on. And
yet it would be so much better for the mass of mankind if they never heard =
of
the flattened sphere. They should never be told that the earth is round. It
only makes everything unreal to them. They are balked in their impression of
the flat good earth, they can't get over this sphere business, they live in=
a
fog of abstraction, and nothing is anything. Save for purposes of abstracti=
on,
the earth is a great plain, with hills and valleys. Why force abstractions =
and
kill the reality, when there's no need?
As for children, will we never realize that th=
eir
abstractions are never based on observations, but on subjective exaggeratio=
ns?
If there is an eye in the face, the face is all eye. It is the child soul w=
hich
cannot get over the mystery of the eye. If there is a tree in a landscape, =
the
landscape is all tree. Always this partial focus. The attempt to make a chi=
ld
focus for a whole view--which is really a generalization and an adult abstr=
action--is
simply wicked. Yet the first thing we do is to set a child making relief-ma=
ps
in clay, for example: of his own district. Imbecility! He has not even the
faintest impression of the total hill on which his home stands. A steepness=
going
up to a door--and front garden railings--and perhaps windows. That's the lo=
t.
The top and bottom of it is, that it is a crim=
e to
teach a child anything at all, school-wise. It is just evil to collect chil=
dren
together and teach them through the head. It causes absolute starvation in =
the
dynamic centers, and sterile substitute of brain knowledge is all the gain.=
The
children of the middle classes are so vitally impoverished, that the miracl=
e is
they continue to exist at all. The children of the lower classes do better,
because they escape into the streets. But even the children of the proletar=
iat
are now infected.
And, of course, as my critics point out, under=
all
the school-smarm and newspaper-cant, man is to-day as savage as a cannibal,=
and
more dangerous. The living dynamic self is denaturalized instead of being e=
ducated.
We talk about education--leading forth the nat=
ural
intelligence of a child. But ours is just the opposite of leading forth. It=
is
a ramming in of brain facts through the head, and a consequent distortion, =
suffocation,
and starvation of the primary centers of consciousness. A nice day of recko=
ning
we've got in front of us.
Let us lead forth, by all means. But let us not
have mental knowledge before us as the goal of the leading. Much less let us
make of it a vicious circle in which we lead the unhappy child-mind, like a=
cow
in a ring at a fair. We don't want to educate children so that they may und=
erstand.
Understanding is a fallacy and a vice in most people. I don't even want my
child to know, much less to understand. I don't want my child to know that =
five
fives are twenty-five, any more than I want my child to wear my hat or my
boots. I don't want my child to know. If he wants five fives let him count =
them
on his fingers. As for his little mind, give it a rest, and let his dynamic
self be alert. He will ask "why" often enough. But he more often =
asks
why the sun shines, or why men have mustaches, or why grass is green, than =
anything
sensible. Most of a child's questions are, and should be, unanswerable. They
are not questions at all. They are exclamations of wonder, they are remarks
half-sceptically addressed. When a child says, "Why is grass green?&qu=
ot;
he half implies. "Is it really green, or is it just taking me in?"
And we solemnly begin to prate about chlorophyll. Oh, imbeciles, idiots,
inexcusable owls!
The whole of a child's development goes on from
the great dynamic centers, and is basically non-mental. To introduce mental
activity is to arrest the dynamic activity, and stultify true dynamic devel=
opment.
By the age of twenty-one our young people are helpless, hopeless, selfless,
floundering mental entities, with nothing in front of them, because they ha=
ve
been starved from the roots, systematically, for twenty-one years, and fed
through the head. They have had all their mental excitements, sex and
everything, all through the head, and when it comes to the actual thing, wh=
y,
there's nothing in it. Blasé. The affective centers have been exhaus=
ted
from the head.
Before the age of fourteen, children should be
taught only to move, to act, to do. And they should be taught as little as
possible even of this. Adults simply cannot and do not know any more what t=
he
mode of childish intelligence is. Adults always interfere. They always force
the adult mental mode. Therefore children must be preserved from adult
instructions.
Make a child work--yes. Make it do little jobs.
Keep a fine and delicate and fierce discipline, so that the little jobs are
performed as perfectly as is consistent with the child's nature. Make the c=
hild
alert, proud, and becoming in its movements. Make it know very definitely t=
hat
it shall not and must not trespass on other people's privacy or patience. T=
each
it songs, tell it tales. But never instruct it school-wise. And mostly, lea=
ve
it alone, send it away to be with other children and to get in and out of
mischief, and in and out of danger. Forget your child altogether as much as
possible.
All this is the active and strenuous business =
of
parents, and must not be shelved off on to strangers. It is the business of
parents mentally to forget but dynamically never to forsake their children.=
It is no use expecting parents to know why sch=
ools
are closed, and why they, the parents, must be quite responsible for their =
own children
during the first ten years. If it is quite useless to expect parents to
understand a theory of relativity, much less will they understand the
development of the dynamic consciousness. But why should they understand? I=
t is
the business of very few to understand and for the mass, it is their busine=
ss
to believe and not to bother, but to be honorable and humanly to fulfill th=
eir
human responsibilities. To give active obedience to their leaders, and to
possess their own souls in natural pride.
Some must understand why a child is not to be
mentally educated. Some must have a faint inkling of the processes of
consciousness during the first fourteen years. Some must know what a child
beholds, when it looks at a horse, and what it means when it says, "Wh=
y is
grass green?" The answer to this question, by the way, is "Becaus=
e it
is."
The interplay of the four dynamic centers foll=
ows
no one conceivable law. Mental activity continues according to a law of
co-relation. But there is no logical or rational co-relation in the dynamic=
consciousness.
It pulses on inconsequential, and it would be impossible to determine any
sequence. Out of the very lack of sequence in dynamic consciousness does the
individual himself develop. The dynamic abstraction of a child's precepts
follows no mental law, and even no law which can ever be mentally propounde=
d.
And this is why it is utterly pernicious to set a child making a clay
relief-map of its own district, or to ask a child to draw conclusions from
given observations. Dynamically, a child draws no conclusions. All things s=
till
remain dynamically possible. A conclusion drawn is a nail in the coffin of a
child's developing being. Let a child make a clay landscape, if it likes. B=
ut
entirely according to its own fancy, and without conclusions drawn. Only, l=
et
the landscape be vividly made--always the discipline of the soul's full
attention. "Oh, but where are the factory chimneys?"--or
else--"Why have you left out the gas-works?" or "Do you call
that sloppy thing a church?" The particular focus should be vivid, and=
the
record in some way true. The soul must give earnest attention, that is all.=
And so actively disciplined, the child develops
for the first ten years. We need not be afraid of letting children see the
passions and reactions of adult life. Only we must not strain the sympathie=
s of
a child, in any direction, particularly the direction of love and pity. Nor
must we introduce the fallacy of right and wrong. Spontaneous distaste shou=
ld
take the place of right and wrong. And least of all must there be a cry:
"You see, dear, you don't understand. When you are older--" A chi=
ld's
sagacity is better than an adult understanding, anyhow.
Of course it is ten times criminal to tell you=
ng
children facts about sex, or to implicate them in adult relationships. A ch=
ild
has a strong evanescent sex consciousness. It instinctively writes impossib=
le
words on back walls. But this is not a fully conscious mental act. It is a =
kind
of dream act--quite natural. The child's curious, shadowy, indecent
sex-knowledge is quite in the course of nature. And does nobody any harm at
all. Adults had far better not notice it. But if a child sees a cockerel tr=
ead
a hen, or two dogs coupling, well and good. It should see these things. Onl=
y,
without comment. Let nothing be exaggeratedly hidden. By instinct, let us
preserve the decent privacies. But if a child occasionally sees its parent
nude, taking a bath, all the better. Or even sitting in the W. C. Exaggerat=
ed
secrecy is bad. But indecent exposure is also very bad. But worst of all is=
dragging
in the mental consciousness of these shadowy dynamic realities.
In the same way, to talk to a child about an a=
dult
is vile. Let adults keep their adult feelings and communications for people=
of their
own age. But if a child sees its parents violently quarrel, all the better.
There must be storms. And a child's dynamic understanding is far deeper and
more penetrating than our sophisticated interpretation. But never make a ch=
ild
a party to adult affairs. Never drag the child in. Refuse its sympathy on s=
uch
occasions. Always treat it as if it had no business to hear, even if it is
present and must hear. Truly, it has no business mentally to hear. And the =
dynamic
soul will always weigh things up and dispose of them properly, if there be =
no
interference of adult comment or adult desire for sympathy. It is despicable
for any one parent to accept a child's sympathy against the other parent. A=
nd
the one who received the sympathy is always more contemptible than the one =
who
is hated.
Of course so many children are born to-day
unnaturally mentally awake and alive to adult affairs, that there is nothing
left but to tell them everything, crudely: or else, much better, to say:
"Ah, get out, you know too much, you make me sick."
To return to the question of sex. A child is b=
orn
sexed. A child is either male or female, in the whole of its psyche and
physique is either male or female. Every single living cell is either male =
or female,
and will remain either male or female as long as life lasts. And every sing=
le
cell in every male child is male, and every cell in every female child is
female. The talk about a third sex, or about the indeterminate sex, is just=
to
pervert the issue.
Biologically, it is true, the rudimentary
formation of both sexes is found in every individual. That doesn't mean that
every individual is a bit of both, or either, ad lib. After a sufficient pe=
riod
of idealism, men become hopelessly self-conscious. That is, the great affec=
tive
centers no longer act spontaneously, but always wait for control from the h=
ead.
This always breeds a great fluster in the psyche, and the poor self-conscio=
us
individual cannot help posing and posturing. Our ideal has taught us to be
gentle and wistful: rather girlish and yielding, and very yielding in our s=
ympathies.
In fact, many young men feel so very like what they imagine a girl must fee=
l, that
hence they draw the conclusion that they must have a large share of female =
sex
inside them. False conclusion.
These girlish men have often, to-day, the fine=
st
maleness, once it is put to the test. How is it then that they feel, and lo=
ok,
so girlish? It is largely a question of the direction of the polarized flow.
Our ideal has taught us to be so loving and so submissive and so yielding in
our sympathy, that the mode has become automatic in many men. Now in what we
will call the "natural" mode, man has his positivity in the
volitional centers, and women in the sympathetic. In fulfilling the Christi=
an
love ideal, however, men have reversed this. Man has assumed the gentle,
all-sympathetic rôle, and woman has become the energetic party, with =
the
authority in her hands. The male is the sensitive, sympathetic nature, the
woman the active, effective, authoritative. So that the male acts as the
passive, or recipient pole of attraction, the female as the active, positiv=
e,
exertive pole, in human relations. Which is a reversal of the old flow. The
woman is now the initiator, man the responder. They seem to play each other=
's parts.
But man is purely male, playing woman's part, and woman is purely female,
however manly. The gulf between Heliogabalus, or the most womanly man on ea=
rth,
and the most manly woman, is just the same as ever: just the same old gulf
between the sexes. The man is male, the woman is female. Only they are play=
ing
one another's parts, as they must at certain periods. The dynamic polarity =
has
swung around.
If we look a little closer, we can define this
positive and negative business better. As a matter of fact, positive and
negative, passive and active cuts both ways. If the man, as thinker and doe=
r,
is active, or positive, and the woman negative, then, on the other hand, as=
the
initiator of emotion, of feeling, and of sympathetic understanding the woma=
n is
positive, the man negative. The man may be the initiator in action, but the
woman is initiator in emotion. The man has the initiative as far as volunta=
ry
activity goes, and the woman the initiative as far as sympathetic activity
goes. In love, it is the woman naturally who loves, the man who is loved. In
love, woman is the positive, man the negative. It is woman who asks, in lov=
e,
and man who answers. In life, the reverse is the case. In knowing and in do=
ing,
man is positive and woman negative: man initiates, and woman lives up to it=
.
Naturally this nicely arranged order of things=
may
be reversed. Action and utterance, which are male, are polarized against
feeling, emotion, which are female. And which is positive, which negative? =
Was
man, the eternal protagonist, born of woman, from her womb of fathomless em=
otion?
Or was woman, with her deep womb of emotion, born from the rib of active ma=
n,
the first created? Man, the doer, the knower, the original in being, is he =
lord
of life? Or is woman, the great Mother, who bore us from the womb of love, =
is
she the supreme Goddess?
This is the question of all time. And as long =
as
man and woman endure, so will the answer be given, first one way, then the
other. Man, as the utterer, usually claims that Eve was created out of his
spare rib: from the field of the creative, upper dynamic consciousness, that
is. But woman, as soon as she gets a word in, points to the fact that man i=
nevitably,
poor darling, is the issue of his mother's womb. So the battle rages.
But some men always agree with the woman. Some=
men
always yield to woman the creative positivity. And in certain periods, such=
as
the present, the majority of men concur in regarding woman as the source of
life, the first term in creation: woman, the mother, the prime being.
And then, the whole polarity shifts over. Man =
still
remains the doer and thinker. But he is so only in the service of emotional=
and
procreative woman. His highest moment is now the emotional moment when he g=
ives
himself up to the woman, when he forms the perfect answer for her great
emotional and procreative asking. All his thinking, all his activity in the
world only contributes to this great moment, when he is fulfilled in the
emotional passion of the woman, the birth of rebirth, as Whitman calls it. =
In
his consummation in the emotional passion of a woman, man is reborn, which =
is
quite true.
And there is the point at which we all now sti=
ck.
Life, thought, and activity, all are devoted truly to the great end of Woma=
n,
wife and mother.
Man has now entered on to his negative mode. N=
ow,
his consummation is in feeling, not in action. Now, his activity is all of =
the
domestic order and all his thought goes to proving that nothing matters exc=
ept that
birth shall continue and woman shall rock in the nest of this globe like a =
bird
who covers her eggs in some tall tree. Man is the fetcher, the carrier, the
sacrifice, the crucified, and the reborn of woman.
This being so, the whole tendency of his nature
changes. Instead of being assertive and rather insentient, he becomes waver=
ing
and sensitive. He begins to have as many feelings--nay, more than a woman. =
His
heroism is all in altruistic endurance. He worships pity and tenderness and
weakness, even in himself. In short, he takes on very largely the original
rôle of woman. Woman meanwhile becomes the fearless, inwardly relentl=
ess,
determined positive party. She grips the responsibility. The hand that rocks
the cradle rules the world. Nay, she makes man discover that cradles should=
not
be rocked, in order that her hands may be left free. She is now a queen of =
the earth,
and inwardly a fearsome tyrant. She keeps pity and tenderness emblazoned on=
her
banners. But God help the man whom she pities. Ultimately she tears him to
bits.
Therefore we see the reversal of the old poles.
Man becomes the emotional party, woman the positive and active. Man begins =
to
show strong signs of the peculiarly strong passive sex desire, the desire t=
o be
taken, which is considered characteristic of woman. Man begins to have all =
the
feelings of woman--or all the feelings which he attributed to woman. He bec=
omes
more feminine than woman ever was, and worships his own femininity, calling=
it
the highest. In short, he begins to exhibit all signs of sexual complexity.=
He
begins to imagine he really is half female. And certainly woman seems very
male. So the hermaphrodite fallacy revives again.
But it is all a fallacy. Man, in the midst of =
all
his effeminacy, is still male and nothing but male. And woman, though she
harangue in Parliament or patrol the streets with a helmet on her head, is
still completely female. They are only playing each other's rôles,
because the poles have swung into reversion. The compass is reversed. But t=
hat doesn't
mean that the north pole has become the south pole, or that each is a bit of
both.
Of course a woman should stick to her own natu=
ral
emotional positivity. But then man must stick to his own positivity of bein=
g, of
action, disinterested, non-domestic, male action, which is not devoted to t=
he
increase of the female. Once man vacates his camp of sincere, passionate po=
sitivity
in disinterested being, his supreme responsibility to fulfill his own
profoundest impulses, with reference to none but God or his own soul, not
taking woman into count at all, in this primary responsibility to his own
deepest soul; once man vacates this strong citadel of his own genuine, not
spurious, divinity; then in comes woman, picks up the scepter and begins to=
conduct
a rag-time band.
Man remains man, however he may put on wistful=
ness
and tenderness like petticoats, and sensibilities like pearl ornaments. Your
sensitive little big-eyed boy, so much more gentle and loving than his hard=
er sister,
is male for all that, believe me. Perhaps evilly male, so mothers may learn=
to
their cost: and wives still more.
Of course there should be a great balance betw=
een
the sexes. Man, in the daytime, must follow his own soul's greatest impulse,
and give himself to life-work and risk himself to death. It is not woman wh=
o claims
the highest in man. It is a man's own religious soul that drives him on bey=
ond
woman, to his supreme activity. For his highest, man is responsible to God
alone. He may not pause to remember that he has a life to lose, or a wife a=
nd
children to leave. He must carry forward the banner of life, though seven
worlds perish, with all the wives and mothers and children in them. Hence
Jesus, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" Every man that lives=
has
to say it again to his wife or mother, once he has any work or mission in h=
and,
that comes from his soul.
But again, no man is a blooming marvel for
twenty-four hours a day. Jesus or Napoleon or any other of them ought to ha=
ve
been man enough to be able to come home at tea-time and put his slippers on=
and
sit under the spell of his wife. For there you are, the woman has her world,
her positivity: the world of love, of emotion, of sympathy. And it behooves
every man in his hour to take off his shoes and relax and give himself up to
his woman and her world. Not to give up his purpose. But to give up himself=
for
a time to her who is his mate.--And so it is one detests the clock-work Kan=
t,
and the petit-bourgeois Napoleon divorcing his Josephine for a Hapsburg--or=
even
Jesus, with his "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"--He might h=
ave
added "just now."--They were all failures.
=
=
The
last chapter was a chapter of semi-digression. We now return to the straight
course. Is the straightness none too evident? Ah well, it's a matter of
relativity. A child is born with one sex only, and remains always single in=
his
sex. There is no intermingling, only a great change of rôles is possi=
ble.
But man in the female rôle is still male.
Sex--that is to say, maleness and femaleness--=
is
present from the moment of birth, and in every act or deed of every child. =
But
sex in the real sense of dynamic sexual relationship, this does not exist i=
n a
child, and cannot exist until puberty and after. True, children have a sort=
of
sex consciousness. Little boys and little girls may even commit indecencies
together. And still it is nothing vital. It is a sort of shadow activity, a
sort of dream-activity. It has no very profound effect.
But still, boys and girls should be kept apart=
as
much as possible, that they may have some sort of respect and fear for the =
gulf
that lies between them in nature, and for the great strangeness which each =
has
to offer the other, finally. We are all wrong when we say there is no vital
difference between the sexes. There is every difference. Every bit, every c=
ell
in a boy is male, every cell is female in a woman, and must remain so. Women
can never feel or know as men do. And in the reverse men can never feel and
know, dynamically, as women do. Man, acting in the passive or feminine
polarity, is still man, and he doesn't have one single unmanly feeling. And
women, when they speak and write, utter not one single word that men have n=
ot
taught them. Men learn their feelings from women, women learn their mental =
consciousness
from men. And so it will ever be. Meanwhile, women live forever by feeling,=
and
men live forever from an inherent sense of purpose. Feeling is an end in
itself. This is unspeakable truth to a woman, and never true for one minute=
to
a man. When man, in the Epicurean spirit, embraces feeling, he makes himsel=
f a
martyr to it--like Maupassant or Oscar Wilde. Woman will never understand t=
he depth
of the spirit of purpose in man, his deeper spirit. And man will never
understand the sacredness of feeling to woman. Each will play at the other's
game, but they will remain apart.
The whole mode, the whole everything is really
different in man and woman. Therefore we should keep boys and girls apart, =
that
they are pure and virgin in themselves. On mixing with one another, in beco=
ming
familiar, in being "pals," they lose their own male and female in=
tegrity.
And they lose the treasure of the future, the vital sex polarity, the dynam=
ic
magic of life. For the magic and the dynamism rests on otherness.
For actual sex is a vital polarity. And a pola=
rity
which rouses into action, as we know, at puberty.
And how? As we know, a child lives from the gr=
eat
field of dynamic consciousness established between the four poles of the
dynamic psyche, two great poles of sympathy, two great poles of will. The s=
olar
plexus and the lumbar ganglion, great nerve-centers below the diaphragm, ac=
t as
the dynamic origin of all consciousness in man, and are immediately polariz=
ed
by the other two nerve-centers, the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion
above the diaphragm. At these four poles the whole flow, both within the
individual and from without him, of dynamic consciousness and dynamic creat=
ive
relationship is centered. These four first poles constitute the first field=
of
dynamic consciousness for the first twelve or fourteen years of the life of=
every
child.
And then a change takes place. It takes place
slowly, gradually and inevitably, utterly beyond our provision or control. =
The
living soul is unfolding itself in another great metamorphosis.
What happens, in the biological psyche, is that
deeper centers of consciousness and function come awake. Deep in the lower =
body
the great sympathetic center, the hypogastric plexus has been acting all the
time in a kind of dream-automatism, balanced by its corresponding voluntary
center, the sacral ganglion. At the age of twelve these two centers begin
slowly to rumble awake, with a deep reverberant force that changes the whole
constitution of the life of the individual.
And as these two centers, the sympathetic cent=
er
of the deeper abdomen, and the voluntary center of the loins, gradually spa=
rkle
into wakeful, conscious activity, their corresponding poles are roused in t=
he
upper body. In the region of the throat and neck, the so-called cervical
plexuses and the cervical ganglia dawn into activity.
We have now another field of dawning dynamic
consciousness, that will extend far beyond the first. And now various things
happen to us. First of all actual sex establishes its strange and troubleso=
me presence
within us. This is the massive wakening of the lower body. And then, in the
upper body, the breasts of a woman begin to develop, her throat changes its
form. And in the man, the voice breaks, the beard begins to grow round the =
lips
and on to the throat. There are the obvious physiological changes resulting
from the gradual bursting into free activity of the hypogastric plexus and =
the
sacral ganglion, in the lower body, and of the cervical plexuses and gangli=
a of
the neck, in the upper body.
Why the growth of hair should start at the low=
er
and upper sympathetic regions we cannot say. Perhaps for protection. Perhap=
s to
preserve these powerful yet supersensitive nodes from the inclemency of cha=
nges
in temperature, which might cause a derangement. Perhaps for the sake of
protective warning, as hair warns when it is touched. Perhaps for a screen
against various dynamic vibrations, and as a receiver of other suited dynam=
ic
vibrations. It may be that even the hair of the head acts as a sensitive
vibration-medium for conveying currents of physical and vitalistic activity=
to
and from the brain. And perhaps from the centers of intense vital surcharge
hair springs as a sort of annunciation or declaration, like a crest of
life-assertion. Perhaps all these things, and perhaps others.
But with the bursting awake of the four new po=
les
of dynamic consciousness and being, change takes place in everything, the f=
eatures
now begin to take individual form, the limbs develop out of the soft round
matrix of child-form, the body resolves itself into distinctions. A strange
creative change in being has taken place. The child before puberty is quite
another thing from the child after puberty. Strange indeed is this new birt=
h,
this rising from the sea of childhood into a new being. It is a resurrection
which we fear.
And now, a new world, a new heaven and a new
earth. Now new relationships are formed, the old ones retire from their
prominence. Now mother and father inevitably give way before masters and mi=
stresses,
brothers and sisters yield to friends. This is the period of Schwärmer=
ei,
of young adoration and of real initial friendships. A child before puberty =
has
playmates. After puberty he has friends and enemies.
A whole new field of passional relationship. A=
nd
the old bonds relaxing, the old love retreating. The father and mother bonds
now relax, though they never break. The family love wanes, though it never =
dies.
It is the hour of the stranger. Let the strang=
er
now enter the soul.
And it is the first hour of true individuality,
the first hour of genuine, responsible solitariness. A child knows the abys=
s of
forlornness. But an adolescent alone knows the strange pain of growing into=
his
own isolation of individuality.
All this change is an agony and a bliss. It is=
a
cataclysm and a new world. It is our most serious hour, perhaps. And yet we
cannot be responsible for it.
Now sex comes into active being. Until puberty,
sex is submerged, nascent, incipient only. After puberty, it is a tremendous
factor.
What is sex, really? We can never say,
satisfactorily. But we know so much: we know that it is a dynamic polarity
between human beings, and a circuit of force always flowing. The psychoanal=
yst
is right so far. There can be no vivid relation between two adult individua=
ls which
does not consist in a dynamic polarized flow of vitalistic force or magneti=
sm
or electricity, call it what you will, between these two people. Yet is this
dynamic flow inevitably sexual in nature?
This is the moot point for psychoanalysis. But=
let
us look at sex, in its obvious manifestation. The sexual relation between m=
an
and woman consummates in the act of coition. Now what is the act of coition=
? We
know its functional purpose of procreation. But, after all our experience a=
nd
all our poetry and novels we know that the procreative purpose of sex is, to
the individual man and woman, just a side-show. To the individual, the act =
of
coition is a great psychic experience, a vital experience of tremendous
importance. On this vital individual experience the life and very being of =
the
individual largely depends.
But what is the experience? Untellable. Only, =
we
know something. We know that in the act of coition the blood of the individ=
ual
man, acutely surcharged with intense vital electricity--we know no word, so=
say
"electricity," by analogy--rises to a culmination, in a tremendou=
s magnetic
urge towards the magnetic blood of the female. The whole of the living bloo=
d in
the two individuals forms a field of intense, polarized magnetic attraction.
So, the two poles must be brought into contact. In the act of coition, the =
two
seas of blood in the two individuals, rocking and surging towards contact, =
as
near as possible, clash into a oneness. A great flash of interchange occurs,
like an electric spark when two currents meet or like lightning out of the =
densely
surcharged clouds. There is a lightning flash which passes through the bloo=
d of
both individuals, there is a thunder of sensation which rolls in diminishing
crashes down the nerves of each--and then the tension passes.
The two individuals are separate again. But are
they as they were before? Is the air the same after a thunder-storm as befo=
re?
No. The air is as it were new, fresh, tingling with newness. So is the bloo=
d of
man and woman after successful coition. After a false coition, like prostit=
ution,
there is not newness but a certain disintegration.
But after coition, the actual chemical
constitution of the blood is so changed, that usually sleep intervenes, to
allow the time for chemical, biological readjustment through the whole syst=
em.
So, the blood is changed and renewed, refreshe=
d,
almost recreated, like the atmosphere after thunder. Out of the newness of =
the
living blood pass the new strange waves which beat upon the great dynamic c=
enters
of the nerves: primarily upon the hypogastric plexus and the sacral ganglio=
n.
From these centers rise new impulses, new vision, new being, rising like
Aphrodite from the foam of the new tide of blood. And so individual life go=
es
on.
Perhaps, then, we will allow ourselves to say
what, in psychic individual reality, is the act of coition. It is the bring=
ing
together of the surcharged electric blood of the male with the polarized el=
ectric
blood of the female, with the result of a tremendous flashing interchange,
which alters the constitution of the blood, and the very quality of being, =
in
both.
And this, surely, is sex. But is this the whol=
e of
sex? That is the question.
After coition, we say the blood is renewed. We=
say
that from the new, finely sparkling blood new thrills pass into the great
affective centers of the lower body, new thrills of feeling, of impulse, of=
energy.--And
what about these new thrills?
Now, a new story. The new thrills are passed o=
n to
the great upper centers of the dynamic body. The individual polarity now
changes, within the individual system. The upper centers, cardiac plexus an=
d cervical
plexuses, thoracic ganglion and cervical ganglia now assume positivity. The=
se,
the upper polarized centers, have now the positive rôle to play, the
solar and the hypogastric plexuses, the lumbar and the sacral ganglia, these
have the submissive, negative rôle for the time being.
And what then? What now, that the upper centers
are finely active in positivity? Now it is a different story. Now there is =
new
vision in the eyes, new hearing in the ears, new voice in the throat and sp=
eech
on the lips. Now the new song rises, the brain tingles to new thought, the
heart craves for new activity.
The heart craves for new activity. For new
collective activity. That is, for a new polarized connection with other bei=
ngs,
other men.
Is this new craving for polarized communion wi=
th
others, this craving for a new unison, is it sexual, like the original crav=
ing
for the woman? Not at all. The whole polarity is different. Now, the positi=
ve poles
are the poles of the breast and shoulders and throat, the poles of activity=
and
full consciousness. Men, being themselves made new after the act of coition,
wish to make the world new. A new, passionate polarity springs up between m=
en
who are bent on the same activity, the polarity between man and woman sinks=
to
passivity. It is now daytime, and time to forget sex, time to be busy makin=
g a
new world.
Is this new polarity, this new circuit of pass=
ion
between comrades and co-workers, is this also sexual? It is a vivid circuit=
of
polarized passion. Is it hence sex?
It is not. Because what are the poles of posit=
ive
connection?--the upper, busy poles. What is the dynamic contact?--a unison =
in
spirit, in understanding, and a pure commingling in one great work. A mingl=
ing
of the individual passion into one great purpose. Now this is also a grand
consummation for men, this mingling of many with one great impassioned purp=
ose.
But is this sex? Knowing what sex is, can we call this other also sex? We
cannot.
This meeting of many in one great passionate
purpose is not sex, and should never be confused with sex. It is a great mo=
tion
in the opposite direction. And I am sure that the ultimate, greatest desire=
in
men is this desire for great purposive activity. When man loses his deep se=
nse
of purposive, creative activity, he feels lost, and is lost. When he makes =
the
sexual consummation the supreme consummation, even in his secret soul, he f=
alls
into the beginnings of despair. When he makes woman, or the woman and child=
the
great center of life and of life-significance, he falls into the beginnings=
of
despair.
Man must bravely stand by his own soul, his own
responsibility as the creative vanguard of life. And he must also have the
courage to go home to his woman and become a perfect answer to her deep sex=
ual
call. But he must never confuse his two issues. Primarily and supremely man=
is
always the pioneer of life, adventuring onward into the unknown, alone with=
his
own temerarious, dauntless soul. Woman for him exists only in the twilight,=
by
the camp fire, when day has departed. Evening and the night are hers.
The psychoanalysts, driving us back to the sex=
ual
consummation always, do us infinite damage.
We have to break away, back to the great uniso=
n of
manhood in some passionate purpose. Now this is not like sex. Sex is always=
individual.
A man has his own sex: nobody else's. And sexually he goes as a single
individual; he can mingle only singly. So that to make sex a general affair=
is
just a perversion and a lie. You can't get people and talk to them about th=
eir
sex, as if it were a common interest.
We have got to get back to the great purpose of
manhood, a passionate unison in actively making a world. This is a real
commingling of many. And in such a commingling we forfeit the individual. In
the commingling of sex we are alone with one partner. It is an individual a=
ffair,
there is no superior or inferior. But in the commingling of a passionate
purpose, each individual sacredly abandons his individual. In the living fa=
ith
of his soul, he surrenders his individuality to the great urge which is upon
him. He may have to surrender his name, his fame, his fortune, his life,
everything. But once a man, in the integrity of his own individual soul,
believes, he surrenders his own individuality to his belief, and becomes on=
e of
a united body. He knows what he does. He makes the surrender honorably, in
agreement with his own soul's deepest desire. But he surrenders, and remains
responsible for the purity of his surrender.
But what if he believes that his sexual
consummation is his supreme consummation? Then he serves the great purpose =
to
which he pledges himself only as long as it pleases him. After which he tur=
ns
it down, and goes back to sex. With sex as the one accepted prime motive, t=
he world
drifts into despair and anarchy.
Of all countries, America has most to fear fro= m anarchy, even from one single moment's lapse into anarchy. The old nations are organically fixed into classes, but America not. You can shake Europe to at= oms. And yet peasants fall back to peasantry, artisans to industrial labor, upper classes to their control--inevitably. But can you say the same of America?<= o:p>
America must not lapse for one single moment i=
nto
anarchy. It would be the end of her. She must drift no nearer to anarchy. S=
he
is near enough.
Well, then, Americans must make a choice. It i=
s a
choice between belief in man's creative, spontaneous soul, and man's automa=
tic
power of production and reproduction. It is a choice between serving man, or
woman. It is a choice between yielding the soul to a leader, leaders, or
yielding only to the woman, wife, mistress, or mother.
The great collective passion of belief which
brings men together, comrades and co-workers, passionately obeying their
soul-chosen leader or leaders, this is not a sex passion. Not in any sense.=
Sex
holds any two people together, but it tends to disintegrate society, unless=
it
is subordinated to the great dominating male passion of collective purpose.=
But when the sex passion submits to the great
purposive passion, then you have fulness. And no great purposive passion can
endure long unless it is established upon the fulfillment in the vast major=
ity
of individuals of the true sexual passion. No great motive or ideal or soci=
al
principle can endure for any length of time unless based upon the sexual
fulfillment of the vast majority of individuals concerned.
It cuts both ways. Assert sex as the predomina=
nt
fulfillment, and you get the collapse of living purpose in man. You get
anarchy. Assert purposiveness as the one supreme and pure activity of life,=
and
you drift into barren sterility, like our business life of to-day, and our =
political
life. You become sterile, you make anarchy inevitable. And so there you are.
You have got to base your great purposive activity upon the intense sexual
fulfillment of all your individuals. That was how Egypt endured. But you ha=
ve
got to keep your sexual fulfillment even then subordinate, just subordinate=
to
the great passion of purpose: subordinate by a hair's breadth only: but sti=
ll,
by that hair's breadth, subordinate.
Perhaps we can see now a little better--to go =
back
to the child--where Freud is wrong in attributing a sexual motive to all hu=
man
activity. It is obvious there is no real sexual motive in a child, for exam=
ple.
The great sexual centers are not even awake. True, even in a child of three,
rudimentary sex throws strange shadows on the wall, in its approach from the
distance. But these are only an uneasy intrusion from the as-yet-uncreated,
unready biological centers. The great sexual centers of the hypogastric ple=
xus,
and the immensely powerful sacral ganglion are slowly prepared, developed i=
n a
kind of prenatal gestation during childhood before puberty. But even an unb=
orn
child kicks in the womb. So do the great sex-centers give occasional blind =
kicks
in a child. It is part of the phenomenon of childhood. But we must be most
careful not to charge these rather unpleasant apparitions or phenomena agai=
nst
the individual boy or girl. We must be very careful not to drag the matter =
into
mental consciousness. Shoo it away. Reprimand it with a pah! and a faugh! a=
nd a
bit of contempt. But do not get into any heat or any fear. Do not startle a
passional attention. Drive the whole thing away like the shadow it is, and =
be very
careful not to drive it into the consciousness. Be very careful to plant no
seed of burning shame or horror. Throw over it merely the cold water of
contemptuous indifference, dismissal.
After puberty, a child may as well be told the
simple and necessary facts of sex. As things stand, the parent may as well =
do
it. But briefly, coldly, and with as cold a dismissal as possible.--"L=
ook here,
you're not a child any more; you know it, don't you? You're going to be a m=
an.
And you know what that means. It means you're going to marry a woman later =
on,
and get children. You know it, and I know it. But in the meantime, leave
yourself alone. I know you'll have a lot of bother with yourself, and your
feelings. I know what is happening to you. And I know you get excited about=
it.
But you needn't. Other men have all gone through it. So don't you go creepi=
ng off
by yourself and doing things on the sly. It won't do you any good.--I know =
what
you'll do, because we've all been through it. I know the thing will keep co=
ming
on you at night. But remember that I know. Remember. And remember that I wa=
nt
you to leave yourself alone. I know what it is, I tell you. I've been throu=
gh
it all myself. You've got to go through these years, before you find a woman
you want to marry, and whom you can marry. I went through them myself, and =
got myself
worked up a good deal more than was good for me.--Try to contain yourself.
Always try to contain yourself, and be a man. That's the only thing. Always=
try
and be manly, and quiet in yourself. Remember I know what it is. I've been =
the
same, in the same state that you are in. And probably I've behaved more
foolishly and perniciously than ever you will. So come to me if anything re=
ally
bothers you. And don't feel sly and secret. I do know just what you've got =
and
what you haven't. I've been as bad and perhaps worse than you. And the only=
thing
I want of you is to be manly. Try and be manly, and quiet in yourself."=
;
That is about as much as a father can say to a
boy, at puberty. You have to be very careful what you do: especially if you=
are
a parent. To translate sex into mental ideas is vile, to make a scientific =
fact
of it is death.
As a matter of fact there should be some sort =
of
initiation into true adult consciousness. Boys should be taken away from th=
eir
mothers and sisters as much as possible at adolescence. They should be given
into some real manly charge. And there should be some actual initiation into
sex life. Perhaps like the savages, who make the boy die again, symbolicall=
y,
and pull him forth through some narrow aperture, to be born again, and make=
him
suffer and endure terrible hardships, to make a great dynamic effect on the
consciousness, a terrible dynamic sense of change in the very being. In sho=
rt,
a long, violent initiation, from which the lad emerges emaciated, but cut o=
ff
forever from childhood, entered into the serious, responsible pale of manho=
od.
And with his whole consciousness convulsed by a great change, as his dynamic
psyche actually is convulsed.--And something in the same way, to initiate g=
irls
into womanhood.
There should be the intense dynamic reaction: =
the
physical suffering and the physical realization sinking deep into the soul,
changing the soul for ever. Sex should come upon us as a terrible thing of =
suffering
and privilege and mystery: a mysterious metamorphosis come upon us, and a n=
ew
terrible power given us, and a new responsibility. Telling?--What's the goo=
d of
telling?--The mystery, the terror, and the tremendous power of sex should n=
ever
be explained away. The mass of mankind should never be acquainted with the
scientific biological facts of sex: never. The mystery must remain in its d=
ark
secrecy, and its dark, powerful dynamism. The reality of sex lies in the gr=
eat dynamic
convulsions in the soul. And as such it should be realized, a great
creative-convulsive seizure upon the soul.--To make it a matter of test-tube
mixtures, chemical demonstrations and trashy lock-and-key symbols is just
blasting. Even more sickening is the line: "You see, dear, one day you=
'll
love a man as I love Daddy, more than anything else in the whole world. And
then, dear, I hope you'll marry him. Because if you do you'll be happy, and=
I
want you to be happy, my love. And so I hope you'll marry the man you really
love (kisses the child).--And then, darling, there will come a lot of things
you know nothing about now. You'll want to have a dear little baby, won't y=
ou, darling?
Your own dear little baby. And your husband's as well. Because it'll be his,
too. You know that, don't you, dear? It will be born from both of you. And =
you
don't know how, do you? Well, it will come from right inside you, dear, out=
of
your own inside. You came out of mother's inside, etc., etc."
But I suppose there's really nothing else to be
done, given the world and society as we've got them now. The mother is doing
her best.
But it is all wrong. It is wrong to make sex appear as if it were part of the dear-darling-love smarm: the spiritual lov= e. It is even worse to take the scientific test-tube line. It all kills the gr= eat effective dynamism of life, and substitutes the mere ash of mental ideas and tricks.<= o:p>
The scientific fact of sex is no more sex than=
a
skeleton is a man. Yet you'd think twice before you stock a skeleton in fro=
nt
of a lad and said, "You see, my boy, this is what you are when you com=
e to
know yourself."--And the ideal, lovey-dovey "explanation" of=
sex
as something wonderful and extra lovey-dovey, a bill-and-coo process of obt=
aining
a sweet little baby--or else "God made us so that we must do this, to
bring another dear little baby to life"--well, it just makes one sick.=
It
is disastrous to the deep sexual life. But perhaps that is what we want.
When humanity comes to its senses it will real=
ize
what a fearful Sodom apple our understanding is. What terrible mouths and
stomachs full of bitter ash we've all got. And then we shall take away
"knowledge" and "understanding," and lock them up along
with the rest of poisons, to be administered in small doses only by compete=
nt
people.
We have almost poisoned the mass of humanity to
death with understanding. The period of actual death and race-extermination=
is not
far off. We could have produced the same barrenness and frenzy of nothingne=
ss
in people, perhaps, by dinning it into them that every man is just a
charnel-house skeleton of unclean bones. Our "understanding," our
science and idealism have produced in people the same strange frenzy of
self-repulsion as if they saw their own skulls each time they looked in the
mirror. A man is a thing of scientific cause-and-effect and biological proc=
ess,
draped in an ideal, is he? No wonder he sees the skeleton grinning through =
the
flesh.
Our leaders have not loved men: they have loved
ideas, and have been willing to sacrifice passionate men on the altars of t=
he blood-drinking,
ever-ash-thirsty ideal. Has President Wilson, or Karl Marx, or Bernard Shaw=
ever
felt one hot blood-pulse of love for the working man, the half-conscious,
deluded working man? Never. Each of these leaders has wanted to abstract him
away from his own blood and being, into some foul Methuselah or abstraction=
of
a man.
And me? There is no danger of the working man =
ever
reading my books, so I shan't hurt him that way. But oh, I would like to sa=
ve
him alive, in his living, spontaneous, original being. I can't help it. It =
is
my passionate instinct.
I would like him to give me back the responsib=
ility
for general affairs, a responsibility which he can't acquit, and which saps=
his
life. I would like him to give me back the responsibility for the future. I
would like him to give me back the responsibility for thought, for directio=
n. I
wish we could take hope and belief together. I would undertake my share of =
the
responsibility, if he gave me his belief.
I would like him to give me back books and
newspapers and theories. And I would like to give him back, in return, his =
old
insouciance, and rich, original spontaneity and fullness of life.
=
In the
serious hour of puberty, the individual passes into his second phase of
accomplishment. But there cannot be a perfect transition unless all the
activity is in full play in all the first four poles of the psyche. Childho=
od
is a chrysalis from which each must extricate himself. And the struggling y=
outh
or maid cannot emerge unless by the energy of all powers; he can never emer=
ge
if the whole mass of the world and the tradition of love hold him back.
Now we come to the greater peril of our partic=
ular
form of idealism. It is the idealism of love and of the spirit: the idealis=
m of
yearning, outgoing love, of pure sympathetic communion and "understand=
ing."
And this idealism recognizes as the highest earthly love, the love of mother
and child.
And what does this mean? It means, for every
delicately brought up child, indeed for all the children who matter, a stea=
dy
and persistent pressure upon the upper sympathetic centers, and a steady and
persistent starving of the lower centers, particularly the great voluntary
center of the lower body. The center of sensual, manly independence, of
exultation in the sturdy, defiant self, willfulness and masterfulness and
pride, this center is steadily suppressed. The warm, swift, sensual self is
steadily and persistently denied, damped, weakened, throughout all the peri=
od
of childhood. And by sensual we do not mean greedy or ugly, we mean the dee=
per,
more impulsive reckless nature. Life must be always refined and superior. L=
ove
and happiness must be the watchword. The willful, critical element of the
spiritual mode is never absent, the silent, if forbearing disapproval and d=
istaste
is always ready. Vile bullying forbearance.
With what result? The center of upper sympathy=
is
abnormally, inflamedly excited; and the centers of will are so deranged that
they operate in jerks and spasms. The true polarity of the
sympathetic-voluntary system within the child is so disturbed as to be almo=
st
deranged. Then we have an exaggerated sensitiveness alternating with a sort=
of
helpless fury: and we have delicate frail children with nerves or with stra=
nge
whims. And we have the strange cold obstinacy of the spiritual will, cold a=
s hell,
fixed in a child.
Then one parent, usually the mother, is the ob=
ject
of blind devotion, whilst the other parent, usually the father, is an objec=
t of
resistance. The child is taught, however, that both parents should be loved,
and only loved: and that love, gentleness, pity, charity, and all
"higher" emotions, these alone are genuine feelings, all the rest=
are
false, to be rejected.
With what result? The upper centers are develo=
ped
to a degree of unnatural acuteness and reaction--or again they fall numbed =
and barren.
And then between parents and children a painfully false relation grows up: a
relation as of two adults, either of two pure lovers, or of two love-appear=
ing
people who are really trying to bully one another. Instead of leaving the c=
hild
with its own limited but deep and incomprehensible feelings, the parent,
hopelessly involved in the sympathetic mode of selfless love, and spiritual
love-will, stimulates the child into a consciousness which does not belong =
to
it, on the one plane, and robs it of its own spontaneous consciousness and =
freedom
on the other plane.
And this is the fatality. Long before puberty,=
by
an exaggeration and an intensity of spiritual love from the parents, the se=
cond
centers of sympathy are artificially aroused into response. And there is an=
irreparable
disaster. Instead of seeing as a child should see, through a glass, darkly,=
the
child now opens premature eyes of sympathetic cognition. Instead of knowing=
in
part, as it should know, it begins, at a fearfully small age, to know in fu=
ll.
The cervical plexuses and the cervical ganglia, which should only begin to
awake after adolescence, these centers of the higher dynamic sympathy and c=
ognition,
are both artificially stimulated, by the adult personal love-emotion and
love-will into response, in a quite young child, sometimes even in an infan=
t.
This is a holy obscenity.
Our particular mode of idealism causes us to
suppress as far as possible the sensual centers, to make them negative. The
whole of the activity is concentrated, as far as possible, in the upper or =
spiritual
centers, the centers of the breast and throat, which we will call the cente=
rs
of dynamic cognition, in contrast to the centers of sensual comprehension b=
elow
the diaphragm.
And then a child arrives at puberty, with its
upper nature already roused into precocious action. The child nowadays is
almost invariably precocious in "understanding." In the north,
spiritually precocious, so that by the time it arrives at adolescence it
already has experienced the extended sympathetic reactions which should have
lain utterly dark. And it has experienced these extended reactions with who=
m?
With the parent or parents.
Which is man devouring his own offspring. For =
to
the parents belongs, once and for all, the dynamic reaction on the first pl=
ane
of consciousness only, the reaction and relationship at the first four pole=
s of
dynamic consciousness. When the second, the farther plane of consciousness
rouses into action, the relationship is with strangers. All human instinct =
and
all ethnology will prove this to us. What sex-instinct there is in a child =
is
always adverse to the parents.
But also, the parents are all too quick. They =
all
proceed to swallow their children before the children can get out of their
clutches. And even if parents do send away their children at the age of
puberty--to school or elsewhere--it is not much good. The mischief has been
done before. For the first twelve years the parents and the whole community=
forcibly
insist on the child's living from the upper centers only, and particularly =
the
upper sympathetic centers, without the balance of the warm, deep sensual se=
lf.
Parents and community alike insist on rousing an adult sympathetic response,
and a mental answer in the child-schools, Sunday-schools, books,
home-influence--all works in this one pernicious way. But it is the home, t=
he
parents, that work most effectively and intensely. There is the most intima=
te
mesh of love, love-bullying, and "understanding" in which a child=
is entangled.
So that a child arrives at the age of puberty
already stripped of its childhood's darkness, bound, and delivered over.
Instead of waking now to a whole new field of consciousness, a whole vast a=
nd
wonderful new dynamic impulse towards new connections, it finds itself fata=
lly bound.
Puberty accomplishes itself. The hour of sex strikes. But there is your chi=
ld,
bound, helpless. You have already aroused in it the dynamic response to your
own insatiable love-will. You have already established between your child a=
nd
yourself the dynamic relation in the further plane of consciousness. You ha=
ve
got your child as sure as if you had woven its flesh again with your own. Y=
ou
have done what it is vicious for any parent to do: you have established bet=
ween
your child and yourself the bond of adult love: the love of man for man, wo=
man
for woman, or man for woman. All your tenderness, your cherishing will not
excuse you. It only deepens your guilt. You have established between your c=
hild
and yourself the bond of further sympathy. I do not speak of sex. I speak of
pure sympathy, sacred love. The parents establish between themselves and th=
eir
child the bond of the higher love, the further spiritual love, the sympathy=
of the
adult soul.
And this is fatal. It is a sort of incest. It =
is a
dynamic spiritual incest, more dangerous than sensual incest, because it is
more intangible and less instinctively repugnant. But let psychoanalysis fa=
ll
into what discredit it may, it has done us this great service of proving to=
us
that the intense upper sympathy, indeed the dynamic relation either of
love-will or love-sympathy, between parent and child, upon the upper plane,
inevitably involves us in a conclusion of incest.
For although it is our aim to establish a pure=
ly
spiritual dynamic relation on the upper plane only, yet, because of the ine=
vitable
polarity of the human psychic system, we shall arouse at the same time a
dynamic sensual activity on the lower plane, the deeper sensual plane. We m=
ay
be as pure as angels, and yet, being human, this will and must inevitably
happen. When Mrs. Ruskin said that John Ruskin should have married his moth=
er
she spoke the truth. He was married to his mother. For in spite of all our
intention, all our creed, all our purity, all our desire and all our will, =
once
we arouse the dynamic relation in the upper, higher plane of love, we
inevitably evoke a dynamic consciousness on the lower, deeper plane of sens=
ual love.
And then what?
Of course, parents can reply that their love,
however intense, is pure, and has absolutely no sensual element. Maybe--and
maybe not. But admit that it is so. It does not help. The intense excitemen=
t of
the upper centers of sympathy willy-nilly arouses the lower centers. It aro=
uses
them to activity, even if it denies them any expression or any polarized
connection. Our psyche is so framed that activity aroused on one plane prov=
okes
activity on the corresponding plane, automatically. So the intense pure
love-relation between parent and child inevitably arouses the lower centers=
in
the child, the centers of sex. Now the deeper sensual centers, once aroused,
should find response from the sensual body of some other, some friend or lo=
ver.
The response is impossible between parent and child. Myself, I believe that
biologically there is radical sex-aversion between parent and child, at the
deeper sensual centers. The sensual circuit cannot adjust itself spontaneou=
sly
between the two.
So what have you? Child and parent intensely
linked in adult love-sympathy and love-will, on the upper plane, and in the
child, the deeper sensual centers aroused, but finding no correspondent, no=
objective,
no polarized connection with another person. There they are, the powerful
centers of sex, acting spasmodically, without balance. They must be polariz=
ed
somehow. So they are polarized to the active upper centers within the child,
and you get an introvert.
This is how introversion begins. The lower sex=
ual
centers are aroused. They find no sympathy, no connection, no response from
outside, no expression. They are dynamically polarized by the upper centers
within the individual. That is, the whole of the sexual or deeper sensual f=
low
goes on upwards in the individual, to his own upper, from his own lower
centers. The upper centers hold the lower in positive polarity. The flow go=
es
on upwards. There must be some reaction. And so you get, first and foremost,
self-consciousness, an intense consciousness in the upper self of the lower
self. This is the first disaster. Then you get the upper body exploiting the
lower body. You get the hands exploiting the sensual body, in feeling,
fingering, and in masturbation. You get a pornographic longing with regard =
to
the self. You get the obscene post cards which most youths possess. You get=
the
absolute lust for dirty stories, which so many men have. And you get various
mild sex perversions, such as masturbation, and so on.
What does all this mean? It means that the
activity of the lower psyche and lower body is polarized by the upper body.
Eyes and ears want to gather sexual activity and knowledge. The mind becomes
full of sex: and always, in an introvert, of his own sex. If we examine the=
apparent
extroverts, like the flaunting Italian, we shall see the same thing. It is =
his
own sex which obsesses him.
And to-day what have we but this? Almost
inevitably we find in a child now an intense, precocious, secret sexual
preoccupation. The upper self is rabidly engaged in exploiting the lower se=
lf.
A child and its own roused, inflamed sex, its own shame and masturbation, i=
ts
own cruel, secret sexual excitement and sex curiosity, this is the greatest
tragedy of our day. The child does not so much want to act as to know. The
thought of actual sex connection is usually repulsive. There is an aversion
from the normal coition act. But the craving to feel, to see, to taste, to
know, mentally in the head, this is insatiable. Anything, so that the sensa=
tion
and experience shall come through the upper channels. This is the secret of=
our
introversion and our perversion to-day. Anything rather than spontaneous di=
rect
action from the sensual self. Anything rather than the merely normal passio=
n.
Introduce any trick, any idea, any mental element you can into sex, but mak=
e it
an affair of the upper consciousness, the mind and eyes and mouth and finge=
rs.
This is our vice, our dirt, our disease.
And the adult, and the ideal are to blame. But=
the
tragedy of our children, in their inflamed, solitary sexual excitement,
distresses us beyond any blame.
It is time to drop the word love, and more than
time to drop the ideal of love. Every frenzied individual is told to find
fulfillment in love. So he tries. Whereas, there is no fulfillment in love.
Half of our fulfillment comes through love, through strong, sensual love. B=
ut
the central fulfillment, for a man, is that he possess his own soul in stre=
ngth
within him, deep and alone. The deep, rich aloneness, reached and perfected
through love. And the passing beyond any further quest of love.
This central fullness of self-possession is our
goal, if goal there be any. But there are two great ways of fulfillment. The
first, the way of fulfillment through complete love, complete, passionate, =
deep
love. And the second, the greater, the fulfillment through the accomplishme=
nt
of religious purpose, the soul's earnest purpose. We work the love way fals=
ely,
from the upper self, and work it to death. The second way, of active unison=
in
strong purpose, and in faith, this we only sneer at.
But to return to the child and the parent. The
coming to the fulfillment of single aloneness, through love, is made imposs=
ible
for us by the ideal, the monomania of more love. At the very âge dang=
ereuse,
when a woman should be accomplishing her own fulfillment into maturity and =
rich
quiescence, she turns rabidly to seek a new lover. At the very crucial time
when she should be coming to a state of pure equilibrium and rest with her
husband, she turns rabidly against rest or peace or equilibrium or husband =
in
any shape or form, and demands more love, more love, a new sort of lover, o=
ne
who will "understand" her. And as often as not she turns to her s=
on.
It is true, a woman reaches her goal of
fulfillment through feeling. But through being "understood" she
reaches nowhere, unless the lover understands what a vice it is for a woman=
to
get herself and her sex into her head. A woman reaches her fulfillment thro=
ugh
love, deep sensual love, and exquisite sensitive communion. But once she
reaches the point of fulfillment, she should not break off to ask for more =
excitements.
She should take the beauty of maturity and peace and quiet faithfulness upon
her.
This she won't do, however, unless the man, her
husband, goes on beyond her. When a man approaches the beginning of maturity
and the fulfillment of his individual self, about the age of thirty-five, t=
hen is
not his time to come to rest. On the contrary. Deeply fulfilled through
marriage, and at one with his own soul, he must now undertake the
responsibility for the next step into the future. He must now give himself
perfectly to some further purpose, some passionate purposive activity. Till=
a
man makes the great resolution of aloneness and singleness of being, till he
takes upon himself the silence and central appeasedness of maturity; and th=
en,
after this, assumes a sacred responsibility for the next purposive step into
the future, there is no rest. The great resolution of aloneness and
appeasedness, and the further deep assumption of responsibility in
purpose--this is necessary to every parent, every father, every husband, at=
a
certain point. If the resolution is never made, the responsibility never em=
braced,
then the love-craving will run on into frenzy, and lay waste to the family.=
In
the woman particularly the love-craving will run on to frenzy and disaster.=
Seeking, seeking the fulfillment in the deep
passional self; diseased with self-consciousness and sex in the head, foile=
d by
the very loving weakness of the husband who has not the courage to withdraw
into his own stillness and singleness, and put the wife under the spell of =
his fulfilled
decision; the unhappy woman beats about for her insatiable satisfaction,
seeking whom she may devour. And usually, she turns to her child. Here she
provokes what she wants. Here, in her own son who belongs to her, she seems=
to
find the last perfect response for which she is craving. He is a medium to =
her,
she provokes from him her own answer. So she throws herself into a last gre=
at
love for her son, a final and fatal devotion, that which would have been the
richness and strength of her husband and is poison to her boy. The husband,=
irresolute,
never accepting his own higher responsibility, bows and accepts. And the fa=
tal
round of introversion and "complex" starts once more. If man will
never accept his own ultimate being, his final aloneness, and his last
responsibility for life, then he must expect woman to dash from disaster to
disaster, rootless and uncontrolled.
"On revient toujours à son premier
amour." It sounds like a cynicism to-day. As if we really meant: "=
;On
ne revient jamais à son premier amour." But as a matter of fact=
, a
man never leaves his first love, once the love is established. He may leave=
his
first attempt at love. Once a man establishes a full dynamic communication =
at
the deeper and the higher centers, with a woman, this can never be broken. =
But
sex in the head breaks down, and half circuits break down. Once the full ci=
rcuit
is established, however, this can never break down.
Nowadays, alas, we start off self-conscious, w=
ith
sex in the head. We find a woman who is the same. We marry because we are
"pals." The sex is a rather nasty fiasco. We keep up a pretense of
"pals"--and nice love. Sex spins wilder in the head than ever. Th=
ere
is either a family of children whom the dissatisfied parents can devote
themselves to, thereby perverting the miserable little creatures: or else t=
here
is a divorce. And at the great dynamic centers nothing has happened at all.
Blank nothing. There has been no vital interchange at all in the whole of t=
his
beautiful marriage affair.
Establish between yourself and another individ=
ual
a dynamic connection at only two of the four further poles, and you will ha=
ve
the devil of a job to break the connection. Especially if it be the first c=
onnection
you have made. Especially if the other individual be the first in the field=
.
This is the case of the parents. Parents are f=
irst
in the field of the child's further consciousness. They are criminal
trespassers in that field. But that makes no matter. They are first in the
field. They establish a dynamic connection between the two upper centers, t=
he centers
of the throat, the centers of the higher dynamic sympathy and cognition. Th=
ey
establish this circuit. And break it if you can. Very often not even death =
can
break it.
And as we see, the establishment of the upper
love-and-cognition circuit inevitably provokes the lower sex-sensual centers
into action, even though there be no correspondence on the sensual plane
between the two individuals concerned. Then see what happens. If you want t=
o see
the real desirable wife-spirit, look at a mother with her boy of eighteen. =
How
she serves him, how she stimulates him, how her true female self is his, is
wife-submissive to him as never, never it could be to a husband. This is the
quiescent, flowering love of a mature woman. It is the very flower of a wom=
an's
love: sexually asking nothing, asking nothing of the beloved, save that he
shall be himself, and that for his living he shall accept the gift of her l=
ove.
This is the perfect flower of married love, which a husband should put in h=
is cap
as he goes forward into the future in his supreme activity. For the husband=
, it
is a great pledge, and a blossom. For the son also it seems wonderful. The
woman now feels for the first time as a true wife might feel. And her feeli=
ng
is towards her son.
Or, instead of mother and son, read father and
daughter.
And then what? The son gets on swimmingly for a
time, till he is faced with the actual fact of sex necessity. He gleefully
inherits his adolescence and the world at large, without an obstacle in his
way, mother-supported, mother-loved. Everything comes to him in glamour, he
feels he sees wondrous much, understands a whole heaven, mother-stimulated.
Think of the power which a mature woman thus infuses into her boy. He flare=
s up
like a flame in oxygen. No wonder they say geniuses mostly have great mothe=
rs.
They mostly have sad fates.
And then?--and then, with this glamorous youth?
What is he actually to do with his sensual, sexual self? Bury it? Or make an
effort with a stranger? For he is taught, even by his mother, that his manh=
ood
must not forego sex. Yet he is linked up in ideal love already, the best he=
will
ever know.
No woman will give to a stranger that which she
gives to her son, her father or her brother: that beautiful and glamorous
submission which is truly the wife-submission. To a stranger, a husband, a =
woman
insists on being queen, goddess, mistress, the positive, the adored, the fi=
rst
and foremost and the one and only. This she will not ask from her near
blood-kin. Of her blood-kin, there is always one she will love devotedly.
And so, the charming young girl who adores her
father, or one of her brothers, is sought in marriage by the attractive you=
ng
man who loves his mother devotedly. And a pretty business the marriage is. =
We
can't think of it. Of course they may be good pals. It's the only thing lef=
t.
And there we are. The game is spoilt before it=
is
begun. Within the circle of the family, owing to our creed of insatiable lo=
ve,
intense adult sympathies are provoked in quite young children. In Italy, th=
e Italian
stimulates adult sex-consciousness and sex-sympathy in his child, almost
deliberately. But with us, it is usually spiritual sympathy and spiritual
criticism. The adult experiences are provoked, the adult devotional sympath=
ies
are linked up, prematurely, as far as the child is concerned. We have the h=
eart-wringing
spectacle of intense parent-child love, a love intense as the love of man a=
nd woman,
but not sexual; or else the great brother-sister devotion. And thus, the gr=
eat
love-experience which should lie in the future is forestalled. Within the f=
amily,
the love-bond forms quickly, without the shocks and ruptures inevitable bet=
ween
strangers. And so, it is easiest, intensest--and seems the best. It seems t=
he
highest. You will not easily get a man to believe that his carnal love for =
the
woman he has made his wife is as high a love as that he felt for his mother=
or sister.
The cream is licked off from life before the b=
oy
or the girl is twenty. Afterwards--repetition, disillusion, and barrenness.=
And the cause?--always the same. That parents =
will
not make the great resolution to come to rest within themselves, to possess
their own souls in quiet and fullness. The man has not the courage to withd=
raw at
last into his own soul's stillness and aloneness, and then, passionately and
faithfully, to strive for the living future. The woman has not the courage =
to
give up her hopeless insistence on love and her endless demand for love, de=
mand
of being loved. She has not the greatness of soul to relinquish her own
self-assertion, and believe in the man who believes in himself and in his o=
wn
soul's efforts:--if there are any such men nowadays, which is very doubtful=
.
Alas, alas, the future! Your son, who has tast=
ed
the real beauty of wife-response in his mother or sister. Your daughter, who
adores her brother, and who marries some woman's son. They are so charming =
to look
at, such a lovely couple. And at first it is all such a good game, such good
sport. Then each one begins to fret for the beauty of the lost, non-sexual,
partial relationship. The sexual part of marriage has proved so--so empty.
While that other loveliest thing--the poignant touch of devotion felt for
mother or father or brother--why, this is missing altogether. The best is
missing. The rest isn't worth much. Ah well, such is life. Settle down to i=
t, and
bring up the children carefully to more of the same.--The future!--You've h=
ad
all your good days by the time you're twenty.
And, I ask you, what good will psychoanalysis =
do
you in this state of affairs? Introduce an extra sex-motive to excite you f=
or a
bit and make you feel how thrillingly immoral things really are. And then--=
it all
goes flat again. Father complex, mother complex, incest dreams: pah, when w=
e've
had the little excitement out of them we shall forget them as we have forgo=
tten
so many other catch-words. And we shall be just where we were before: unles=
s we
are worse, with more sex in the head, and more introversion, only more braz=
en.
=
CHAPTER XI - THE
VICIOUS CIRCLE
=
Here
is a very vicious circle. And how to get out of it? In the first place, we =
have
to break the love-ideal, once and for all. Love, as we see, is not the only
dynamic. Taking love in its greatest sense, and making it embrace every for=
m of
sympathy, every flow from the great sympathetic centers of the human body,
still it is not the whole of the dynamic flow, it is only the one-half. The=
re
is always the other voluntary flow to reckon with, the intense motion of
independence and singleness of self, the pride of isolation, and the profou=
nd fulfillment
through power.
The very first thing of all to be recognized is
the danger of idealism. It is the one besetting sin of the human race. It m=
eans
the fall into automatism, mechanism, and nullity.
We know that life issues spontaneously at the
great nodes of the psyche, the great nerve-centers. At first these are four
only: then, after puberty, they become eight: later there may still be an e=
xtension
of the dynamic consciousness, a further polarization. But eight is enough at
the moment.
First at four, and then at eight dynamic cente=
rs of
the human body, the human nervous system, life starts spontaneously into be=
ing.
The soul bursts day by day into fresh impulses, fresh desire, fresh purpose=
, at
these our polar centers. And from these dynamic generative centers issue the
vital currents which put us into connection with our object. We have really=
no
will and no choice, in the first place. It is our soul which acts within us,
day by day unfolding us according to our own nature.
From the objective circuits and from the
subjective circuits which establish and fulfill themselves at the first four
centers of consciousness we derive our first being, our child-being, and al=
so
our first mind, our child-mind. By the objective circuits we mean those cir=
cuits
which are established between the self and some external object: mother,
father, sister, cat, dog, bird, or even tree or plant, or even further stil=
l,
some particular place, some particular inanimate object, a knife or a chair=
or
a cap or a doll or a wooden horse. For we must insist that every object whi=
ch
really enters effectively into our lives does so by direct connection. If I
love my mother, it is because there is established between me and her a dir=
ect,
powerful circuit of vital magnetism, call it what you will, but a direct fl=
ow
of dynamic vital interchange and intercourse. I will not call this vital fl=
ow a
force, because it depends on the incomprehensible initiative and control of=
the
individual soul or self. Force is that which is directed only from some
universal will or law. Life is always individual, and therefore never
controlled by one law, one God. And therefore, since the living really sway=
the
universe, even if unknowingly; therefore there is no one universal law, even
for the physical forces. Because we insist that even the sun depends, for i=
ts
heartbeat, its respiration, its pivotal motion, on the beating hearts of men
and beast, on the dynamic of the soul-impulse in individual creatures. It is
from the aggregate heartbeat of living individuals, of we know not how many=
or
what sort of worlds, that the sun rests stable.
Which may be dismissed as metaphysics, althoug=
h it
is quite as valid or even as demonstrable as Newton's Law of Gravitation, w=
hich
law still remains a law, even if not quite so absolute as heretofore.
But this is a digression. The argument is, that
between an individual and any external object with which he has an affective
connection, there exists a definite vital flow, as definite and concrete as=
the
electric current whose polarized circuit sets our tram-cars running and our
lamps shining, or our Marconi wires vibrating. Whether this object be human=
, or
animal, or plant, or quite inanimate, there is still a circuit. My dog, my
canary has a polarized connection with me. Nay, the very cells in the ash-t=
ree
I loved as a child had a dynamic vibratory connection with the nuclei in my=
own
centers of primary consciousness. And further still, the boots I have worn =
are
so saturated with my own magnetism, my own vital activity, that if anyone e=
lse
wear them I feel it is a trespass, almost as if another man used my hand to
knock away a fly. I doubt very much if a blood-hound, when it takes a scent,
smells, in our sense of the word. It receives at the infinitely sensitive
telegraphic center of the dog's nostrils the vital vibration which remains =
in
the inanimate object from the individual with whom the object was associate=
d. I
should like to know if a dog would trace a pair of quite new shoes which had
merely been dragged at the end of a string. That is, does he follow the sme=
ll
of the leather itself, or the vibration track of the individual whose vital=
ity
is communicated to the leather?
So, there is a definite vibratory rapport betw=
een
a man and his surroundings, once he definitely gets into contact with these=
surroundings.
Any particular locality, any house which has been lived in has a vibration,=
a
transferred vitality of its own. This is either sympathetic or antipathetic=
to
the succeeding individual in varying degree. But certain it is that the
inhabitants who live at the foot of Etna will always have a certain pitch of
life-vibration, antagonistic to the pitch of vibration even of a Palermitan=
, in
some measure. And old houses are saturated with human presence, at last to a
degree of indecency, unbearable. And tradition, in its most elemental sense=
, means
the continuing of the same peculiar pitch of vital vibration.
Such is the objective dynamic flow between the
psychic poles of the individual and the substance of the external object,
animate or inanimate. The subjective dynamic flow is established between the
four primary poles within the individual. Every dynamic connection begins f=
rom
one or the other of the sympathetic centers: is, or should be, almost
immediately polarized from the corresponding voluntary center. Then a compl=
ete
flow is set up, in one plane. But this always rouses the activity on the ot=
her,
corresponding plane, more or less intense. There is a whole field of
consciousness established, with positive polarity of the first plane, negat=
ive
polarity of the second. Which being so, a whole fourfold field of dynamic
consciousness now working within the individual, direct cognition takes pla=
ce.
The mind begins to know, and to strive to know.
The business of the mind is first and foremost=
the
pure joy of knowing and comprehending the pure joy of consciousness. The se=
cond
business is to act as medium, as interpreter, as agent between the individu=
al and
his object. The mind should not act as a director or controller of the
spontaneous centers. These the soul alone must control: the soul being that
forever unknowable reality which causes us to rise into being. There is
continual conflict between the soul, which is for ever sending forth
incalculable impulses, and the psyche, which is conservative, and wishes to
persist in its old motions, and the mind, which wishes to have
"freedom," that is spasmodic, idea-driven control. Mind, and
conservative psyche, and the incalculable soul, these three are a trinity of
powers in every human being. But there is something even beyond these. It is
the individual in his pure singleness, in his totality of consciousness, in=
his
oneness of being: the Holy Ghost which is with us after our Pentecost, and
which we may not deny. When I say to myself: "I am wrong," knowing
with sudden insight that I am wrong, then this is the whole self speaking, =
the Holy
Ghost. It is no piece of mental inference. It is not just the soul sending
forth a flash. It is my whole being speaking in one voice, soul and mind and
psyche transfigured into oneness. This voice of my being I may never deny. =
When
at last, in all my storms, my whole self speaks, then there is a pause. The
soul collects itself into pure silence and isolation--perhaps after much pa=
in.
The mind suspends its knowledge, and waits. The psyche becomes strangely st=
ill.
And then, after the pause, there is fresh beginning, a new life adjustment.
Conscience is the being's consciousness, when the individual is conscious in
toto, when he knows in full. It is something which includes and which far
surpasses mental consciousness. Every man must live as far as he can by his=
own
soul's conscience. But not according to any ideal. To submit the conscience=
to
a creed, or an idea, or a tradition, or even an impulse, is our ruin.
To make the mind the absolute ruler is as good=
as
making a Cook's tourist-interpreter a king and a god, because he can speak
several languages, and make an Arab understand that an Englishman wants fis=
h for
supper. And to make an ideal a ruling principle is about as stupid as if a
bunch of travelers should never cease giving each other and their dragoman
sixpence, because the dragoman's main idea of virtue is the virtue of
sixpence-giving. In the same way, we know we cannot live purely by impulse.
Neither can we live solely by tradition. We must live by all three, ideal,
impulse, and tradition, each in its hour. But the real guide is the pure
conscience, the voice of the self in its wholeness, the Holy Ghost.
We have fallen now into the mistake of idealis=
m.
Man always falls into one of the three mistakes. In China, it is tradition.=
And
in the South Seas, it seems to have been impulse. Ours is idealism. Each of=
the
three modes is a true life-mode. But any one, alone or dominant, brings us =
to
destruction. We must depend on the wholeness of our being, ultimately only =
on
that, which is our Holy Ghost within us. Whereas, in an ideal of love and
benevolence, we have tried to automatize ourselves into little love-engines
always stoked with the sorrows or beauties of other people, so that we can =
get
up steam of charity or righteous wrath. A great trick is to pour on the fire
the oil of our indignation at somebody else's wickedness, and then, when we=
've
got up steam like hell, back the engine and run bish! smash! against the be=
lly
of the offender. Because he said he didn't want to love any more, we hate h=
im
for evermore, and try to run over him, every bit of him, with our love-tank=
s.
And all the time we yell at him: "Will you deny love, you villain? Will
you?" And by the time he faintly squeaks, "I want to be loved! I =
want
to be loved!" we have got so used to running over him with our love-ta=
nks
that we don't feel in a hurry to leave off.
&=
nbsp;
"Sois mon frère, ou je te tue." "Sois mon
frère, ou je me tue."
There are the two parrot-threats of love, on w=
hich
our loving centuries have run as on a pair of railway-lines. Excuse me if I
want to get out of the train. Excuse me if I can't get up any love-steam any
more. My boilers are burst.
We have made a mistake, laying down love like =
the
permanent way of a great emotional transport system. There we are, however,
running on wheels on the lines of our love. And of course we have only two =
directions,
forwards and backwards. "Onward, Christian soldiers, towards the great
terminus where bottles of sterilized milk for the babies are delivered at t=
he
bedroom windows by noiseless aeroplanes each morn, where the science of
dentistry is so perfect that teeth are planted in a man's mouth without his
knowing it, where twilight sleep is so delicious that every woman longs for=
her
next confinement, and where nobody ever has to do anything except turn a ha=
ndle
now and then in a spirit of universal love--" That is the forward
direction of the English-speaking race. The Germans unwisely backed their
engine. "We have a city of light. But instead of lying ahead it lies
direct behind us. So reverse engines. Reverse engines, and away, away to our
city, where the sterilized milk is delivered by noiseless aeroplanes, at the
very precise minute when our great doctors of the Fatherland have diagnosed
that it is good for you: where the teeth are not only so painlessly planted
that they grow like living rock, but where their composition is such that t=
he
friction of eating stimulates the cells of the jaw-bone and develops the
superman strength of will which makes us gods: and where not only is twilig=
ht
sleep serene, but into the sleeper are inculcated the most useful and
instructive dreams, calculated to perfect the character of the young citize=
n at
this crucial period, and to enlighten permanently the mind of the happy mot=
her,
with regard to her new duties towards her child and towards our great
Fatherland--"
Here you see we are, on the railway, with New
Jerusalem ahead, and New Jerusalem away behind us. But of course it was very
wrong of the Germans to reverse their engines, and cause one long collision=
all
along the line. Why should we go their way to the New Jerusalem, when of co=
urse
they might so easily have kept on going our way. And now there's wreckage a=
ll
along the line! But clear the way is our motto--or make the Germans clear i=
t.
Because get on we will.
Meanwhile we sit rather in the cold, waiting f=
or
the train to get a start. People keep on signaling with green lights and red
lights. And it's all very bewildering.
As for me, I'm off. I'm damned if I'll be shun=
ted
along any more. And I'm thrice damned if I'll go another yard towards that
sterilized New Jerusalem, either forwards or backwards. New Jerusalem may r=
ot,
if it waits for me. I'm not going.
So good-by! There we leave humanity, encamped =
in
an appalling mess beside the railway-smash of love, sitting down, however, =
and
having not a bad time, some of 'em, feeding themselves fat on the plunder: =
others,
further down the line, with mouths green from eating grass. But all grossly=
, stupidly,
automatically gabbling about getting the love-service running again, the tr=
ains
booked for the New Jerusalem well on the way once more. And occasionally a =
good
engine gives a screech of love, and something seems to be about to happen. =
And sometimes
there is enough steam to set the indignation-whistles whistling. But never =
any
more will there be enough love-steam to get the system properly running. It=
is
done.
Good-by, then! You may have laid your line from
one end to the other of the infinite. But still there's plenty of hinterlan=
d.
I'll go. Good-by. Ach, it will be so nice to be alone: not to hear you, not=
to see
you, not to smell you, humanity. I wish you no ill, but wisdom. Good-by!
To be alone with one's own soul. Not to be alo=
ne
without my own soul, mind you. But to be alone with one's own soul! This, a=
nd
the joy of it, is the real goal of love. My own soul, and myself. Not my eg=
o,
my conceit of myself. But my very soul. To be at one in my own self. Not to=
be
questing any more. Not to be yearning, seeking, hoping, desiring, aspiring.=
But
to pause, and be alone.
And to have one's own "gentle spouse"=
; by
one's side, of course, to dig one in the ribs occasionally. Because really,
being alone in peace means being two people together. Two people who can be
silent together, and not conscious of one another outwardly. Me in my silen=
ce,
she in hers, and the balance, the equilibrium, the pure circuit between us.
With occasional lapses of course: digs in the ribs if one gets too vague or
self-sufficient.
They say it is better to travel than to arrive.
It's not been my experience, at least. The journey of love has been rather =
a lacerating,
if well-worth-it, journey. But to come at last to a nice place under the tr=
ees,
with your "amiable spouse" who has at last learned to hold her to=
ngue
and not to bother about rights and wrongs: her own particularly. And then to
pitch a camp, and cook your rabbit, and eat him: and to possess your own so=
ul
in silence, and to feel all the clamor lapse. That is the best I know.
I think it is terrible to be young. The ecstas=
ies
and agonies of love, the agonies and ecstasies of fear and doubt and
drop-by-drop fulfillment, realization. The awful process of human
relationships, love and marital relationships especially. Because we all ma=
ke a
very, very bad start to-day, with our idea of love in our head, and our sex=
in
our head as well. All the fight till one is bled of one's self-consciousness
and sex-in-the-head. All the bitterness of the conflict with this devil of =
an
amiable spouse, who has got herself so stuck in her own head. It is terribl=
e to
be young.--But one fights one's way through it, till one is cleaned: the
self-consciousness and sex-idea burned out of one, cauterized out bit by bi=
t,
and the self whole again, and at last free.
The best thing I have known is the stillness of
accomplished marriage, when one possesses one's own soul in silence, side by
side with the amiable spouse, and has left off craving and raving and being
only half one's self. But I must say, I know a great deal more about the cr=
aving
and raving and sore ribs, than about the accomplishment. And I must confess
that I feel this self-same "accomplishment" of the fulfilled bein=
g is
only a preparation for new responsibilities ahead, new unison in effort and
conflict, the effort to make, with other men, a little new way into the fut=
ure,
and to break through the hedge of the many.
But--to your tents, my Israel. And to that
precious baby you've left slumbering there. What I meant to say was, in each
phase of life you have a great circuit of human relationship to establish a=
nd
fulfill. In childhood, it is the circuit of family love, established at the=
first
four consciousness centers, and gradually fulfilling itself, completing its=
elf.
At adolescence, the first circuit of family love should be completed,
dynamically finished. And then, it falls into quiescence. After puberty, fa=
mily
love should fall quiescent in a child. The love never breaks. It continues
static and basic, the basis of the emotional psyche, the foundation of the
self. It is like the moon when the moon at last subsides into her eternal
orbit, round the earth. She travels in her orbit so inevitably that she
forgets, and becomes unaware. She only knits her brows over the earth's gre=
ater
aberrations in space.
The circuit of parental love, once fulfilled, =
is
not done away with, but only established into silence. The child is then fr=
ee
to establish the new connections, in which he surpasses his parents. And le=
t us
repeat, parents should never try to establish adult relations, of sympathy =
or
interest or anything else, between themselves and their children. The attem=
pt
to do so only deranges the deep primary circuit which is the dynamic basis =
of
our living. It is a clambering upwards only by means of a broken foundation.
Parents should remain parents, children children, for ever, and the great g=
ulf
preserved between the two. Honor thy father and thy mother should always be=
a
leading commandment. But this can only take place when father and mother ke=
ep their
true parental distances, dignity, reserve, and limitation. As soon as father
and mother try to become the friends and companions of their children, they
break the root of life, they rupture the deepest dynamic circuit of living,
they derange the whole flow of life for themselves and their children.
For let us reiterate and reiterate: you cannot
mingle and confuse the various modes of dynamic love. If you try, you produ=
ce
horrors. You cannot plant the heart below the diaphragm or put an ocular ey=
e in
the navel. No more can you transfer parent love into friend love or adult l=
ove.
Parent love is established at the great primary centers, where man is father
and child, playmate and brother, but where he cannot be comrade or lover.
Comrade and lover, this is the dynamic activity of the further centers, the
second four centers. And these second four centers must be active in the
parent, their intense circuit established even if not fulfilled, long before
the child is born. The circuit of friendship, of personal companionship, of
sexual love must needs be established before the child is begotten, or at l=
east
before it attains to adolescence. These circuits of the extended field are =
already
fully established in the parent before the centers of correspondence in the=
child
are even formed. When therefore the four great centers of the extended
consciousness arouses in a child, at adolescence, they must needs seek a
strange complement, a foreign conjunction.
Not only is this the case, but the actual dyna=
mic
impulse of the new life which rouses at puberty is alien to the original
dynamic flow. The new wave-length by no means corresponds. The new vibratio=
n by
no means harmonizes. Force the two together, and you cause a terrible frict=
ional
excitement and jarring. It is this instinctive recognition of the different
dynamic vibrations from different centers, in different modes, and in diffe=
rent
directions of positive and negative, which lies at the base of savage taboo.
After puberty, members of one family should be taboo to one another. There
should be the most definite limits to the degree of contact. And mothers-in=
-law
should be taboo to their daughters' husbands, and fathers-in-law to their s=
ons'
wives. We must again begin to learn the great laws of the first dynamic lif=
e-circuits.
These laws we now make havoc of, and consequently we make havoc of our own
soul, psyche, mind and health.
This book is written primarily concerning the
child's consciousness. It is not intended to enter the field of the
post-puberty consciousness. But yet, the dynamic relation of the child is e=
stablished
so directly with the physical and psychical soul of the parent, that to get=
any
inkling of dynamic child-consciousness we must understand something of
parent-consciousness.
We assert that the parent-child love-mode excl=
udes
the possibility of the man-and-woman, or friend-and-friend love mode. We as=
sert
that the polarity of the first four poles is inconsistent with the polarity=
of the
second four poles. Nay, between the two great fields is a certain dynamic
opposition, resistance, even antipathy. So that in the natural course of li=
fe
there is no possibility of confusing parent love and adult love.
But we are mental creatures, and with the
explosive and mechanistic aid of ideas we can pervert the whole psyche. Onl=
y,
however, in a destructive degree, not in a positive or constructive.
Let us return then. In the ordinary course of
development, by the time that the child is born and grown to puberty the wh=
ole
dynamic soul of the mother is engaged: first, with the children, and second=
, on
the further, higher plane, with the husband, and with her own friends. So t=
hat
when the child reaches adolescence it must inevitably cast abroad for
connection.
But now let us remember the actual state of
affairs to-day, when the poles are reversed between the sexes. The woman is=
now
the responsible party, the law-giver, the culture-bearer. She is the consci=
ous
guide and director of the man. She bears his soul between her two hands. An=
d her
sex is just a function or an instrument of power. This being so, the man is
really the servant and the fount of emotion, love and otherwise.
Which is all very well, while the fun lasts. B=
ut
like all perverted processes, it is exhaustive, and like the fun wears out.
Leaving an exhaustion, and an irritation. Each looks on the other as a
perverter of life. Almost invariably a married woman, as she passes the age=
of thirty,
conceives a dislike, or a contempt of her husband, or a pity which is too n=
ear
contempt. Particularly if he be a good husband, a true modern. And he, for =
his
part, though just as jarred inside himself, resents only the fact that he is
not loved as he ought to be.
Then starts a new game. The woman, even the mo=
st
virtuous, looks abroad for new sympathy. She will have a new man-friend, if
nothing more. But as a rule she has got something more. She has got her chi=
ldren.
A relation between mother and child to-day is
practically never parental. It is personal--which means, it is critical and
deliberate, and adult in provocation. The mother, in her new rôle of
idealist and life-manager never, practically for one single moment, gives h=
er
child the unthinking response from the deep dynamic centers. No, she gives =
it
what is good for it. She shoves milk in its mouth as the clock strikes, she
shoves it to sleep when the milk is swallowed, and she shoves it ideally
through baths and massage, promenades and practice, till the little organism
develops like a mushroom to stand on its own feet. Then she continues her i=
deal
shoving of it through all the stages of an ideal up-bringing, she loves it =
as a
chemist loves his test-tubes in which he analyzes his salts. The poor little
object is his mother's ideal. But of her head she dictates his providential=
days,
and by the force of her deliberate mentally-directed love-will she pushes h=
im
up into boyhood. The poor little devil never knows one moment when he is not
encompassed by the beautiful, benevolent, idealistic, Botticelli-pure, and
finally obscene love-will of the mother. Never, never one mouthful does he
drink of the milk of human kindness: always the sterilized milk of human
benevolence. There is no mother's milk to-day, save in tigers' udders, and =
in
the udders of sea-whales. Our children drink a decoction of ideal love, at =
the breast.
Never for one moment, poor baby, the deep warm
stream of love from the mother's bowels to his bowels. Never for one moment=
the
dark proud recoil into rest, the soul's separation into deep, rich
independence. Never this lovely rich forgetfulness, as a cat trots off and
utterly forgets her kittens, utterly, richly forgets them, till suddenly, c=
lick,
the dynamic circuit reverses itself in her, and she remembers, and rages ro=
und
in a frenzy, shouting for her young.
Our miserable infants never know this joy and
richness and pang of real maternal warmth. Our wonderful mothers never let =
us
out of their minds for one single moment. Not for a second do they allow us=
to
escape from their ideal benevolence. Not one single breath does a baby draw,
free from the imposition of the pure, unselfish, Botticelli-holy, detestabl=
e love-will
of the mother. Always the will, the will, the love-will, the ideal will,
directed from the ideal mind. Always this stone, this scorpion of maternal
nourishment. Always this infernal self-conscious Madonna starving our living
guts and bullying us to death with her love.
We have made the idea supplant both impulse and
tradition. We have no spark of wholeness. And we live by an evil love-will.
Alas, the great spontaneous mode is abrogated. There is no lovely great flu=
x of
vital sympathy, no rich rejoicing of pride into isolation and independence.=
There
is no reverence for great traditions of parenthood. No, there is substitute=
for
everything--life-substitute--just as we have butter-substitute, and
meat-substitute, and sugar-substitute, and leather-substitute, and
silk-substitute, so we have life-substitute. We have beastly benevolence, a=
nd
foul good-will, and stinking charity, and poisonous ideals.
The poor modern brat, shoved horribly into lif=
e by
an effort of will, and shoved up towards manhood by every appliance that ca=
n be
applied to it, especially the appliance of the maternal will, it is really =
too pathetic
to contemplate. The only thing that prevents us wringing our hands is the
remembrance that the little devil will grow up and beget other similar litt=
le
devils of his own, to invent more aeroplanes and hospitals and germ-killers=
and
food-substitutes and poison gases. The problem of the future is a question =
of
the strongest poison-gas. Which is certainly a very sure way out of our vic=
ious
circle.
There is no way out of a vicious circle, of
course, except breaking the circle. And since the mother-child relationship=
is
to-day the viciousest of circles, what are we to do? Just wait for the resu=
lts
of the poison-gas competition presumably.
Oh, ideal humanity, how detestable and despica=
ble
you are! And how you deserve your own poison-gases! How you deserve to peri=
sh
in your own stink.
It is no use contemplating the development of =
the
modern child, born out of the mental-conscious love-will, born to be another
unit of self-conscious love-will: an ideal-born beastly little entity with =
a devil's
own will of its own, benevolent, of course, and a Satan's own seraphic
self-consciousness, like a beastly Botticelli brat.
Once we really consider this modern process of
life and the love-will, we could throw the pen away, and spit, and say three
cheers for the inventors of poison-gas. Is there not an American who is
supposed to have invented a breath of heaven whereby, drop one pop-cornful =
in Hampstead,
one in Brixton, one in East Ham, and one in Islington, and London is a Pomp=
eii
in five minutes! Or was the American only bragging? Because anyhow, whom ha=
s he
experimented on? I read it in the newspaper, though. London a Pompeii in fi=
ve
minutes. Makes the gods look silly!
I
thought I'd better turn over a new leaf, and start a new chapter. The inten=
tion
of the last chapter was to find a way out of the vicious circle. And it end=
ed
in poison-gas.
Yes, dear reader, so it did. But you've not
silenced me yet, for all that.
We're in a nasty mess. We're in a vicious circ=
le.
And we're making a careful study of poison-gases. The secret of Greek fire =
was
lost long ago, when the world left off being wonderful and ideal. Now it is=
wonderful
and ideal again, much wonderfuller and much more ideal. So we ought to do
something rare in the way of poison-gas. London a Pompeii in five minutes! =
How
to outdo Vesuvius!--title of a new book by American authors.
There is only one single other thing to do. And
it's more difficult than poison-gas. It is to leave off loving. It is to le=
ave
off benevolenting and having a good will. It is to cease utterly. Just leave
off. Oh, parents, see that your children get their dinners and clean sheets,
but don't love them. Don't love them one single grain, and don't let anybody
else love them. Give them their dinners and leave them alone. You've already
loved them to perdition. Now leave them alone, to find their own way out.
Wives, don't love your husbands any more: even=
if
they cry for it, the great babies! Sing: "I've had enough of that old
sauce." And leave off loving them or caring for them one single bit. D=
on't
even hate them or dislike them. Don't have any stew with them at all. Just =
boil
the eggs and fill the salt-cellars and be quite nice, and in your own soul,=
be alone
and be still. Be alone, and be still, preserving all the human decencies, a=
nd
abandoning the indecency of desires and benevolencies and devotions, those
beastly poison-gas apples of the Sodom vine of the love-will.
Wives, don't love your husbands nor your child=
ren
nor anybody. Sit still, and say Hush! And while you shake the duster out of=
the
drawing-room window, say to yourself--"In the sweetness of solitude.&q=
uot;
And when your husband comes in and says he's afraid he's got a cold and is
going to have double pneumonia, say quietly "surely not." And if =
he
wants the ammoniated quinine, give it him if he can't get it for himself. B=
ut
don't let him drive you out of your solitude, your singleness within yourse=
lf.
And if your little boy falls down the steps and makes his mouth bleed, nurse
and comfort him, but say to yourself, even while you tremble with the shock:
"Alone. Alone. Be alone, my soul." And if the servant smashes thr=
ee
electric-light bulbs in three minutes, say to her: "How very inconside=
rate
and careless of you!" But say to yourself: "Don't hear it, my sou=
l.
Don't take fright at the pop of a light-bulb."
Husbands, don't love your wives any more. If t=
hey
flirt with men younger or older than yourselves, let your blood not stir. If
you can go away, go away. But if you must stay and see her, then say to her=
, "I
would rather you didn't flirt in my presence, Eleanora." Then, when she
goes red and loosens torrents of indignation, don't answer any more. And wh=
en
she floods into tears, say quietly in your own self, "My soul is my
own"; and go away, be alone as much as possible. And when she works
herself up, and says she must have love or she will die, then say: "No=
t my
love, however." And to all her threats, her tears, her entreaties, her
reproaches, her cajolements, her winsomenesses, answer nothing, but say to
yourself: "Shall I be implicated in this display of the love-will? Sha=
ll I
be blasted by this false lightning?" And though you tremble in every
fiber, and feel sick, vomit-sick with the scene, still contain yourself, and
say, "My soul is my own. It shall not be violated." And learn, le=
arn,
learn the one and only lesson worth learning at last. Learn to walk in the =
sweetness
of the possession of your own soul. And whether your wife weeps as she takes
off her amber beads at night, or whether your neighbor in the train sits in
your coat bottoms, or whether your superior in the office makes supercilious
remarks, or your inferior is familiar and impudent; or whether you read in =
the
newspaper that Lloyd George is performing another iniquity, or the Germans
plotting another plot, say to yourself: "My soul is my own. My soul is
with myself, and beyond implication." And wait, quietly, in possession=
of
your own soul, till you meet another man who has made the choice, and kept =
it. Then
you will know him by the look on his face: half a dangerous look, a look of
Cain, and half a look of gathered beauty. Then you two will make the nucleu=
s of
a new society--Ooray! Bis! Bis!!
But if you should never meet such a man: and if
your wife should torture you every day with her love-will: and even if she
should force herself into a consumption, like Catherine Linton in
"Wuthering Heights," owing to her obstinate and determined love-w=
ill
(which is quite another matter than love): and if you see the world inventi=
ng poison-gas
and falling into its poisoned grave: never give in, but be alone, and utter=
ly
alone with your own soul, in the stillness and sweet possession of your own
soul. And don't even be angry. And never be sad. Why should you? It's not y=
our
affair.
But if your wife should accomplish for herself=
the
sweetness of her own soul's possession, then gently, delicately let the new
mode assert itself, the new mode of relation between you, with something of=
spontaneous
paradise in it, the apple of knowledge at last digested. But, my word, what
belly-aches meanwhile. That apple is harder to digest than a lead gun-cartr=
idge.
=
Well,
dear reader, Chapter XII was short, and I hope you found it sweet.
But remember, this is an essay on Child
Consciousness, not a tract on Salvation. It isn't my fault that I am led at
moments into exhortation.
Well, then, what about it? One fact now seems =
very
clear--at any rate to me. We've got to pause. We haven't got to gird our lo=
ins
with a new frenzy and our larynxes with a new Glory Song. Not a bit of it.
Before you dash off to put salt on the tail of a new religion or of a new L=
eader
of Men, dear reader, sit down quietly and pull yourself together. Say to
yourself: "Come now, what is it all about?" And you'll realize, d=
ear
reader, that you're all in a fluster, inwardly. Then say to yourself: "=
;Why
am I in such a fluster?" And you'll see you've no reason at all to be =
so:
except that it's rather exciting to be in a fluster, and it may seem rather
stale eggs to be in no fluster at all about anything. And yet, dear little
reader, once you consider it quietly, it's so much nicer not to be in a
fluster. It's so much nicer not to feel one's deeper innards storming like =
the
Bay of Biscay. It is so much better to get up and say to the waters of one'=
s own
troubled spirit: Peace, be still ...! And they will be still ... perhaps.
And then one realizes that all the wild storms=
of
anxiety and frenzy were only so much breaking of eggs. It isn't our busines=
s to
live anybody's life, or to die anybody's death, except our own. Nor to save=
anybody's
soul, nor to put anybody in the right; nor yet in the wrong, which is more =
the
point to-day. But to be still, and to ignore the false fine frenzy of the
seething world. To turn away, now, each one into the stillness and solitude=
of
his own soul. And there to remain in the quiet with the Holy Ghost which is=
to
each man his own true soul.
This is the way out of the vicious circle. Not=
to
rush round on the periphery, like a rabbit in a ring, trying to break throu=
gh.
But to retreat to the very center, and there to be filled with a new strang=
e stability,
polarized in unfathomable richness with the center of centers. We are so si=
lly,
trying to invent devices and machines for flying off from the surface of the
earth. Instead of realizing that for us the deep satisfaction lies not in e=
scaping,
but in getting into the perfect circuit of the earth's terrestrial magnetis=
m.
Not in breaking away. What is the good of trying to break away from one's o=
wn?
What is the good of a tree desiring to fly like a bird in the sky, when a b=
ird
is rooted in the earth as surely as a tree is? Nay, the bird is only the
topmost leaf of the tree, fluttering in the high air, but attached as close=
to
the tree as any other leaf. Mr. Einstein's Theory of Relativity does not
supersede the Newtonian Law of Gravitation or of Inertia. It only says,
"Beware! The Law of Inertia is not the simple ideal proposition you wo=
uld
like to make of it. It is a vast complexity. Gravitation is not one element=
al
uncouth force. It is a strange, infinitely complex, subtle aggregate of for=
ces."
And yet, however much it may waggle, a stone does fall to earth if you drop=
it.
We should like, vulgarly, to rejoice and say t=
hat
the new Theory of Relativity releases us from the old obligation of central=
ity.
It does no such thing. It only makes the old centrality much more strange, =
subtle,
complex, and vital. It only robs us of the nice old ideal simplicity. Which
ideal simplicity and logicalness has become such a fish-bone stuck in our
throats.
The universe is once more in the mental
melting-pot. And you can melt it down as long as you like, and mutter all t=
he
jargon and abracadabra, aldeboronti fosco fornio of science that mental mon=
key-tricks
can teach you, you won't get anything in the end but a formula and a lie. T=
he
atom? Why, the moment you discover the atom it will explode under your nose.
The moment you discover the ether it will evaporate. The moment you get dow=
n to
the real basis of anything, it will dissolve into a thousand problematic
constituents. And the more problems you solve, the more will spring up with
their fingers at their nose, making a fool of you.
There is only one clue to the universe. And th=
at
is the individual soul within the individual being. That outer universe of =
suns
and moons and atoms is a secondary affair. It is the death-result of living
individuals. There is a great polarity in life itself. Life itself is dual.=
And
the duality is life and death. And death is not just shadow or mystery. It =
is
the negative reality of life. It is what we call Matter and Force, among ot=
her
things.
Life is individual, always was individual and
always will be. Life consists of living individuals, and always did so cons=
ist,
in the beginning of everything. There never was any universe, any cosmos, o=
f which
the first reality was anything but living, incorporate individuals. I don't=
say
the individuals were exactly like you and me. And they were never wildly
different.
And therefore it is time for the idealist and =
the
scientist--they are one and the same, really--to stop his monkey-jargon abo=
ut
the atom and the origin of life and the mechanical clue to the universe. Th=
ere isn't
any such thing. I might as well say: "Then they took the cart, and rub=
bed
it all over with grease. Then they sprayed it with white wine, and spun rou=
nd
the right wheel five hundred revolutions to the minute and the left wheel, =
in
the opposite direction, seven hundred and seventy-seven revolutions to the
minute. Then a burning torch was applied to each axle. And lo, the footboar=
d of
the cart began to swell, and suddenly as the cart groaned and writhed, the
horse was born, and lay panting between the shafts." The whole scienti=
fic
theory of the universe is not worth such a tale: that the cart conceived an=
d gave
birth to the horse.
I do not believe one-fifth of what science can
tell me about the sun. I do not believe for one second that the moon is a d=
ead
world spelched off from our globe. I do not believe that the stars came fly=
ing
off from the sun like drops of water when you spin your wet hanky. I have
believed it for twenty years, because it seemed so ideally plausible. Now I
don't accept any ideal plausibilities at all. I look at the moon and the st=
ars,
and I know I don't believe anything that I am told about them. Except that I
like their names, Aldebaran and Cassiopeia, and so on.
I have tried, and even brought myself to belie=
ve
in a clue to the outer universe. And in the process I have swallowed such a=
lot
of jargon that I would rather listen now to a negro witch-doctor than to Sc=
ience.
There is nothing in the world that is true except empiric discoveries which
work in actual appliances. I know that the sun is hot. But I won't be told =
that
the sun is a ball of blazing gas which spins round and fizzes. No, thank yo=
u.
At length, for my part, I know that life, and =
life
only is the clue to the universe. And that the living individual is the clu=
e to
life. And that it always was so, and always will be so.
When the living individual dies, then is the r=
ealm
of death established. Then you get Matter and Elements and atoms and forces=
and
sun and moon and earth and stars and so forth. In short, the outer universe,
the Cosmos. The Cosmos is nothing but the aggregate of the dead bodies and =
dead
energies of bygone individuals. The dead bodies decompose as we know into
earth, air, and water, heat and radiant energy and free electricity and
innumerable other scientific facts. The dead souls likewise decompose--or e=
lse
they don't decompose. But if they do decompose, then it is not into any
elements of Matter and physical energy. They decompose into some psychic
reality, and into some potential will. They reënter into the living ps=
yche
of living individuals. The living soul partakes of the dead souls, as the
living breast partakes of the outer air, and the blood partakes of the sun.=
The
soul, the individuality, never resolves itself through death into physical
constituents. The dead soul remains always soul, and always retains its
individual quality. And it does not disappear, but reënters into the s=
oul
of the living, of some living individual or individuals. And there it conti=
nues
its part in life, as a death-witness and a life-agent. But it does not,
ordinarily, have any separate existence there, but is incorporate in the li=
ving
individual soul. But in some extraordinary cases, the dead soul may really =
act separately
in a living individual.
How this all is, and what are the laws of the
relation between life and death, the living and the dead, I don't know. But
that this relation exists, and exists in a manner as I describe it, for my =
own part
I know. And I am fully aware that once we direct our living attention this =
way,
instead of to the absurdity of the atom, then we have a whole living univer=
se
of knowledge before us. The universe of life and death, of which we, whose
business it is to live and to die, know nothing. Whilst concerning the univ=
erse
of Force and Matter we pile up theories and make staggering and disastrous
discoveries of machinery and poison-gas, all of which we were much better
without.
It is life we have to live by, not machines and
ideals. And life means nothing else, even, but the spontaneous living soul
which is our central reality. The spontaneous, living, individual soul, thi=
s is
the clue, and the only clue. All the rest is derived.
How it is contrived that the individual soul in
the living sways the very sun in its centrality, I do not know. But it is s=
o.
It is the peculiar dynamic polarity of the living soul in every weed or bug=
or beast,
each one separately and individually polarized with the great returning pol=
e of
the sun, that maintains the sun alive. For I take it that the sun is the gr=
eat
sympathetic center of our inanimate universe. I take it that the sun breath=
es
in the effluence of all that fades and dies. Across space fly the innumerab=
le
vibrations which are the basis of all matter. They fly, breathed out from t=
he
dying and the dead, from all that which is passing away, even in the living.
These vibrations, these elements pass away across space, and are breathed b=
ack
again. The sun itself is invisible as the soul. The sun itself is the soul =
of
the inanimate universe, the aggregate clue to the substantial death, if we =
may
call it so. The sun is the great active pole of the sympathetic death-activ=
ity.
To the sun fly the vibrations or the molecules in the great sympathy-mode of
death, and in the sun they are renewed, they turn again as the great gift b=
ack
again from the sympathetic death-center towards life, towards the living. B=
ut
it is not even the dead which really sustain the sun. It is the dynamic rel=
ation
between the solar plexus of individuals and the sun's core, a perfect circu=
it.
The sun is materially composed of all the effluence of the dead. But the qu=
ick
of the sun is polarized with the living, the sun's quick is polarized in
dynamic relation with the quick of life in all living things, that is, with=
the
solar plexus in mankind. A direct dynamic connection between my solar plexus
and the sun.
Likewise, as the sun is the great fiery, vivif=
ying
pole of the inanimate universe, the moon is the other pole, cold and keen a=
nd vivifying,
corresponding in some way to a voluntary pole. We live between the polarized
circuit of sun and moon. And the moon is polarized with the lumbar ganglion,
primarily, in man. Sun and moon are dynamically polarized to our actual tis=
sue,
they affect this tissue all the time.
The moon is, as it were, the pole of our
particular terrestrial volition, in the universe. What holds the earth swin=
ging
in space is first, the great dynamic attraction to the sun, and then
counterposing assertion of independence, singleness, which is polarized in =
the
moon. The moon is the clue to our earth's individual identity, in the wide =
universe.
The moon is an immense magnetic center. It is
quite wrong to say she is a dead snowy world with craters and so on. I shou=
ld
say she is composed of some very intense element, like phosphorus or radium,
some element or elements which have very powerful chemical and kinetic acti=
vity,
and magnetic activity, affecting us through space.
It is not the sun which we see in heaven. It is
the rushing thither and the rushing thence of the vibrations expelled by de=
ath
from the body of life, and returned back again to the body of life. Possibl=
y even
a dead soul makes its journey to the sun and back, before we receive it aga=
in
in our breast. Just as the breath we breathe out flies to the sun and back,
before we breathe it in again. And as the water that evaporates rises right=
to
the sun, and returns here. What we see is the great golden rushing thither,
from the death exhalation, towards the sun, as a great cloud of bees flying=
to
swarm upon the invisible queen, circling round, and loosing again. This is =
what
we see of the sun. The center is invisible for ever.
And of the moon the same. The moon has her bac=
k to
us for ever. Not her face, as we like to think. The moon also pulls the wat=
er,
as the sun does. But not in evaporation. The moon pulls by the magnetic for=
ce we
call gravitation. Gravitation not being quite such a Newtonian simple apple=
as
we are accustomed to find it, we are perhaps farther off from understanding=
the
tides of the ocean than we were before the fruit of the tree fell to Sir
Isaac's head. It is certainly not simple little-things
tumble-towards-big-things gravitation. In the moon's pull there is peculiar,
quite special force exerted over those water-born substances, phosphorus, s=
alt,
and lime. The dynamic energy of salt water is something quite different from
that of fresh water. And it is this dynamic energy which the sea gives off,=
and
which connects it with the moon. And the moon is some strange coagulation o=
f substance
such as salt, phosphorus, soda. It certainly isn't a snowy cold world, like=
a
world of our own gone cold. Nonsense. It is a globe of dynamic substance li=
ke
radium or phosphorus, coagulated upon a certain vivid pole of energy, which
pole of energy is directly polarized with our earth, in opposition with the
sun.
The moon is born from the death of individuals.
All things, in their oneing, their unification into the pure, universal
oneness, evaporate and fly like an imitation breath towards the sun. Even t=
he
crumbling rocks breathe themselves off in this rocky death, to the sun of h=
eaven,
during the day.
But at the same time, during the night they
breathe themselves off to the moon. If we come to think of it, light and da=
rk
are a question both of the third body, the intervening body, what we will c=
all,
by stretching a point, the individual. As we all know, apart from the exist=
ence
of molecules of individual matter, there is neither light nor dark. A unive=
rse
utterly without matter, we don't know whether it is light or dark. Even the
pure space between the sun and moon, the blue space, we don't know whether,=
in
itself, it is light or dark. We can say it is light, we can say it is dark.=
But
light and dark are terms which apply only to ourselves, the third, the
intermediate, the substantial, the individual.
If we come to think of it, light and dark only
mean whether we have our face or our back towards the sun. If we have our f=
ace
to the sun, then we establish the circuit of cosmic or universal or materia=
l or
infinite sympathy. These four adjectives, cosmic, universal, material, and
infinite are almost interchangeable, and apply, as we see, to that realm of=
the
non-individual existence which we call the realm of the substantial death. =
It
is the universe which has resulted from the death of individuals. And to th=
is
universe alone belongs the quality of infinity: to the universe of death.
Living individuals have no infinity save in this relation to the total
death-substance and death-being, the summed-up cosmos.
Light and dark, these great wonders, are relat=
ive
to us alone. These are two vast poles of the cosmic energy and of material
existence. These are the vast poles of cosmic sympathy, which we call the s=
un, and
the other white pole of cosmic volition, which we call the moon. To the sun
belong the great forces of heat and radiant energy, to the moon belong the
great forces of magnetism and electricity, radium-energy, and so on. The su=
n is
not, in any sense, a material body. It is an invariable intense pole of cos=
mic
energy, and what we see are the particles of our terrestrial decomposition
flying thither and returning, as fine grains of iron would fly to an intense
magnet, or better, as the draught in a room veers towards the fire, attract=
ed infallibly,
as a moth towards a candle. The moth is drawn to the candle as the draught =
is
drawn to the fire, in the absolute spell of the material polarity of fire. =
And
air escapes again, hot and different, from the fire. So is the sun.
Fire, we say, is combustion. It is marvelous h=
ow
science proceeds like witchcraft and alchemy, by means of an abracadabra wh=
ich
has no earthly sense. Pray, what is combustion? You can try and answer scie=
ntifically,
till you are black in the face. All you can say is that it is that which
happens when matter is raised to a certain temperature--and so forth and so
forth. You might as well say, a word is that which happens when I open my m=
outh
and squeeze my larynx and make various tricks with my throat muscles. All t=
hese
explanations are so senseless. They describe the apparatus, and think they =
have
described the event.
Fire may be accompanied by combustion, but
combustion is not necessarily accompanied by fire. All A is B, but all B is=
not
A. And therefore fire, no matter how you jiggle, is not identical with comb=
ustion.
Fire. FIRE. I insist on the absolute word. You may say that fire is a sum of
various phenomena. I say it isn't. You might as well tell me a fly is a sum=
of
wings and six legs and two bulging eyes. It is the fly which has the wings =
and
legs, and not the legs and wings which somehow nab the fly into the middle =
of
themselves. A fly is not a sum of various things. A fly is a fly, and the i=
tems
of the sum are still fly.
So with fire. Fire is an absolute unity in its=
elf.
It is a dynamic polar principle. Establish a certain polarity between the m=
oon-principle
and the sun-principle, between the positive and negative, or sympathetic and
volitional dynamism in any piece of matter, and you have fire, you have the
sun-phenomenon. It is the sudden flare into the one mode, the sun mode, the
material sympathetic mode. Correspondingly, establish an opposite polarity
between the sun-principle and the water-principle, and you have decompositi=
on
into water, or towards watery dissolution.
There are two sheer dynamic principles in our
universe, the sun-principle and the moon-principle. And these principles are
known to us in immediate contact as fire and water. The sun is not fire. Bu=
t the
principle of fire is the sun-principle. That is, fire is the sudden swoop
towards the sun, of matter which is suddenly sun-polarized. Fire is the sud=
den
sun-assertion, the release towards the one pole only. It is the sudden
revelation of the cosmic One Polarity, One Identity.
But there is another pole. There is the moon. =
And
there is another absolute and visible principle, the principle of water. The
moon is not water. But it is the soul of water, the invisible clue to all t=
he waters.
So that we begin to realize our visible univer=
se
as a vast dual polarity between sun and moon. Two vast poles in space,
invisible in themselves, but visible owing to the circuit which swoops betw=
een them,
round them, the circuit of the universe, established at the cosmic poles of=
the
sun and moon. This then is the infinite, the positive infinite of the posit=
ive
pole, the sun-pole, negative infinite of the negative pole, the moon-pole. =
And
between the two infinites all existence takes place.
But wait. Existence is truly a matter of propa=
gation
between the two infinites. But it needs a third presence. Sun-principle and=
moon-principle,
embracing through the æons, could never by themselves propagate one
molecule of matter. The hailstone needs a grain of dust for its core. So do=
es
the universe. Midway between the two cosmic infinites lies the third, which=
is
more than infinite. This is the Holy Ghost Life, individual life.
It is so easy to imagine that between them, the
two infinites of the cosmos propagated life. But one single moment of pause=
and
silence, one single moment of gathering the whole soul into knowledge, will=
tell
us that it is a falsity. It was the living individual soul which, dying, fl=
ung
into space the two wings of the infinite, the two poles of the sun and the
moon. The sun and the moon are the two eternal death-results of the death of
individuals. Matter, all matter, is the Life-born. And what we know as inert
matter, this is only the result of death in individuals, it is the dead bod=
ies
of individuals decomposed and resmelted between the hammer and anvil, fire =
and
sand of the sun and the moon. When time began, the first individual died, t=
he
poles of the sun and moon were flung into space, and between the two, in a
strange chaos and battle, the dead body was torn and melted and smelted, and
rolled beneath the feet of the living. So the world was formed, always under
the feet of the living.
And so we have a clue to gravitation. We, mank=
ind,
are all one family. In our individual bodies burns the positive quick of all
things. But beneath our feet, in our own earth, lies the intense center of =
our human,
individual death, our grave. The earth has one center, to which we are all
polarized. The circuit of our life is balanced on the living soul within us=
, as
the positive center, and on the earth's dark center, the center of our abid=
ing
and eternal and substantial death, our great negative center, away below. T=
his
is the circuit of our immediate individual existence. We stand upon our own
grave, with our death fire, the sun, on our right hand, and our death-damp,=
the
moon, on our left.
The earth's center is no accident. It is the g=
reat
individual pole of us who die. It is the center of the first dead body. It =
is
the first germ-cell of death, which germ-cell threw out the great nuclei of=
the
sun and the moon. To this center of our earth we, as humans, are eternally
polarized, as are our trees. Inevitably, we fall to earth. And the clue of =
us
sinks to the earth's center, the clue of our death, of our weight. And the
earth flings us out as wings to the sun and moon: or as the death-germ divi=
ding
into two nuclei. So from the earth our radiance is flung to the sun, our
marsh-fire to the moon, when we die.
We fall into the earth. But our rising was not
from the earth. We rose from the earthless quick, the unfading life. And ea=
rth,
sun, and moon are born only of our death. But it is only their polarized
dynamic connection with us who live which sustains them all in their place =
and
maintains them all in their own activities. The inanimate universe rests
absolutely on the life-circuit of living creatures, is built upon the arch
which spans the duality of living beings.
=
This
is going rather far, for a book--nay, a booklet--on the child consciousness.
But it can't be helped. Child-consciousness it is. And we have to roll away=
the
stone of a scientific cosmos from the tomb-mouth of that imprisoned
consciousness.
Now, dear reader, let us see where we are. Fir=
st
of all, we are ourselves--which is the refrain of all my chants. We are
ourselves. We are living individuals. And as living individuals we are the =
one,
pure clue to our own cosmos. To which cosmos living individuals have always
been the clue, since time began, and will always be the clue, while time la=
sts.
I know it is not so fireworky as the sudden
evolving of life, somewhere, somewhen and somehow, out of force and matter =
with
a pop. But that pop never popped, dear reader. The boot was on the other le=
g. And
I wish I could mix a few more metaphors, like pops and legs and boots, just=
to
annoy you.
Life never evolved, or evoluted, out of force =
and
matter, dear reader. There is no such thing as evolution, anyhow. There is =
only
development. Man was man in the very first plasm-speck which was his own
individual origin, and is still his own individual origin. As for the origi=
n, I
don't know much about it. I only know there is but one origin, and that is =
the
individual soul. The individual soul originated everything, and has itself =
no
origin. So that time is a matter of living experience, nothing else, and
eternity is just a mental trick. Of course every living speck, amoeba or ne=
wt,
has its own individual soul.
And we sit on our own globe, dear reader, here
individually located. Our own individual being is our own single reality. B=
ut
the single reality of the individual being is dynamically and directly
polarized to the earth's center, which is the aggregate negative center of =
all terrestrial
existence. In short, the center which in life we thrust away from, and towa=
rds
which we fall, in death. For, our individual existence being positive, we m=
ust
have a negative pole to thrust away from. And when our positive individual
existence breaks, and we fall into death, our wonderful individual
gravitation-center succumbs to the earth's gravitation-center.
So there we are, individuals, single, life-bor=
n,
life-living, yet all the while poised and polarized to the aggregate center=
of
our substantial death, our earth's quick, powerful center-clue.
There may be other individuals, alive, and hav=
ing
other worlds under their feet, polarized to their own globe's center. But t=
he
very sacredness of my own individuality prevents my pronouncing about them,=
lest
I, in attributing qualities to them, transgress against the pure individual=
ity
which is theirs, beyond me.
If, however, there be truly other people, with
their own world under their feet, then I think it is fair to say that we all
have our infinite identity in the sun. That in the rush and swirl of death =
we pass
through fiery ways to the same sun. And from the sun, can the spores of sou=
ls
pass to the various worlds? And to the worlds of the cosmos seed across spa=
ce,
through the wild beams of the sun? Is there seed of Mars in my veins? And is
astrology not altogether nonsense?
But if the sun is the center of our infinite
oneing in death with all the other after-death souls of the cosmos: and in =
that
great central station of travel, the sun, we meet and mingle and change tra=
ins
for the stars: then ought we to assume that the moon is likewise a meeting-=
place
of dead souls? The moon surely is a meeting-place of cold, dead, angry soul=
s.
But from our own globe only.
The moon is the center of our terrestrial
individuality in the cosmos. She is the declaration of our existence in sep=
arateness.
Save for the intense white recoil of the moon, the earth would stagger towa=
rds
the sun. The moon holds us to our own cosmic individuality, as a world indi=
vidual
in space. She is the fierce center of retraction, of frictional withdrawal =
into
separateness. She it is who sullenly stands with her back to us, and refuse=
s to
meet and mingle. She it is who burns white with the intense friction of her
withdrawal into separation, that cold, proud white fire of furious, almost
malignant apartness, the struggle into fierce, frictional separation. Her w=
hite
fire is the frictional fire of the last strange, intense watery matter, as =
this
matter fights its way out of combination and out of combustion with the
sun-stuff. To the pure polarity of the moon fly the essential waters of our
universe. Which essential waters, at the moon's clue, are only an intense
invisible energy, a polarity of the moon.
There are only three great energies in the
universal life, which is always individual and which yet sways all the phys=
ical
forces as well as the vital energy; and then the two great dynamisms of the=
sun
and the moon. To the dynamism of the sun belong heat, expansion-force, and =
all
that range. To the dynamism of the moon the essential watery forces: not ju=
st
gravitation, but electricity, magnetism, radium-energy, and so on.
The moon likewise is the pole of our night
activities, as the sun is the pole of our day activities. Remember that the=
sun
and moon are but great self-abandons which individual life has thrown out, =
to
the right hand and to the left. When individual life dies, it flings itself=
on the
right hand to the sun, on the left hand to the moon, in the dual polarity, =
and
sinks to earth. When any man dies, his soul divides in death; as in life, in
the first germ, it was united from two germs. It divides into two dark germ=
s,
flung asunder: the sun-germ and the moon-germ. Then the material body sinks=
to
earth. And so we have the cosmic universe such as we know it.
What is the exact relationship between us and =
the
death-realm of the afterwards we shall never know. But this relation is none
the less active every moment of our lives. There is a pure polarity between=
life
and death, between the living and the dead, between each living individual =
and
the outer cosmos. Between each living individual and the earth's center pas=
ses
a never-ceasing circuit of magnetism. It is a circuit which in man travels =
up
the right side, and down the left side of the body, to the earth's center. =
It
never ceases. But while we are awake it is entirely under the control and s=
pell
of the total consciousness, the individual consciousness, the soul, or self.
When we sleep, however, then this individual consciousness of the soul is s=
uspended
for the time, and we lie completely within the circuit of the earth's
magnetism, or gravitation, or both: the circuit of the earth's centrality. =
It
is this circuit which is busy in all our tissue removing or arranging the d=
ead
body of our past day. For each time we lie down to sleep we have within us a
body of death which dies with the day that is spent. And this body of death=
is
removed or laid in line by the activities of the earth-circuit, the great
active death-circuit, while we sleep.
As we sleep the current sweeps its own way thr=
ough
us, as the streets of a city are swept and flushed at night. It sweeps thro=
ugh
our nerves and our blood, sweeping away the ash of our day's spent
consciousness towards one form or other of excretion. This earth-current
actively sweeping through us is really the death-activity busy in the servi=
ce of
life. It behooves us to know nothing of it. And as it sweeps it stimulates =
in
the primary centers of consciousness vibrations which flash images upon the
mind. Usually, in deep sleep, these images pass unrecorded; but as we pass
towards the twilight of dawn and wakefulness, we begin to retain some
impression, some record of the dream-images. Usually also the images that a=
re
accidentally swept into the mind in sleep are as disconnected and as unmean=
ing
as the pieces of paper which the street cleaners sweep into a bin from the =
city
gutters at night. We should not think of taking all these papers, piecing t=
hem
together, and making a marvelous book of them, prophetic of the future and
pregnant with the past. We should not do so, although every rag of printed
paper swept from the gutter would have some connection with the past day's
event. But its significance, the significance of the words printed upon it =
is
so small, that we relegate it into the limbo of the accidental and meaningl=
ess.
There is no vital connection between the many torn bits of paper--only an a=
ccidental
connection. Each bit of paper has reference to some actual event: a bus-tic=
ket,
an envelope, a tract, a pastry-shop bag, a newspaper, a hand-bill. But take
them all together, bus-ticket, torn envelope, tract, paper-bag, piece of
newspaper and hand-bill, and they have no individual sequence, they belong =
more
to the mechanical arrangements than to the vital consequence of our existen=
ce.
And the same with most dreams. They are the heterogeneous odds and ends of =
images
swept together accidentally by the besom of the night-current, and it is
beneath our dignity to attach any real importance to them. It is always ben=
eath
our dignity to go degrading the integrity of the individual soul by cringing
and scraping among the rag-tag of accident and of the inferior, mechanic
coincidence and automatic event. Only those events are significant which de=
rive
from or apply to the soul in its full integrity. To go kow-towing before the
facts of change, as gamblers and fortune-readers and fatalists do, is merel=
y a
perverting of the soul's proud integral priority, a rearing up of idiotic i=
dols
and fetishes.
Most dreams are purely insignificant, and it is
the sign of a weak and paltry nature to pay any attention to them whatever.
Only occasionally they matter. And this is only when something threatens us
from the outer mechanical, or accidental death-world. When anything threate=
ns
us from the world of death, then a dream may become so vivid that it arouse=
s the
actual soul. And when a dream is so intense that it arouses the soul--then =
we
must attend to it.
But we may have the most appalling nightmare
because we eat pancakes for supper. Here again, we are threatened with an
arrest of the mechanical flow of the system. This arrest becomes so serious
that it affects the great organs of the heart and lungs, and these organs a=
ffect
the primary conscious-centers.
Now we shall see that this is the direct rever=
se
of real living consciousness. In living consciousness the primary affective
centers control the great organs. But when sleep is on us, the reverse takes
place. The great organs, being obstructed in their spontaneous-automatism, =
at
last with violence arouse the active conscious-centers. And these flash ima=
ges to
the brain.
These nightmare images are very frequently pur=
ely
mechanical: as of falling terribly downwards, or being enclosed in vaults. =
And
such images are pure physical transcripts. The image of falling, of flying,=
of
trying to run and not being able to lift the feet, of having to creep throu=
gh
terribly small passages, these are direct transcripts from the physical
phenomena of circulation and digestion. It is the directly transcribed imag=
e of
the heart which, impeded in its action by the gases of indigestion, is swit=
ched
out of its established circuit of earth-polarity, and is as if suspended ov=
er a
void, or plunging into a void: step by step, falling downstairs, maybe, acc=
ording
to the strangulation of the heart beats. The same paralytic inability to li=
ft
the feet when one needs to run, in a dream, comes directly from the same
impeded action of the heart, which is thrown off its balance by some materi=
al
obstruction. Now the heart swings left and right in the pure circuit of the
earth's polarity. Hinder this swing, force the heart over to the left, by
inflation of gas from the stomach or by dead pressure upon the blood and ne=
rves
from any obstruction, and you get the sensation of being unable to lift the=
feet
from earth: a gasping sensation. Or force the heart to over-balance towards=
the
right, and you get the sensation of flying or of falling. The heart telegra=
phs
its distress to the mind, and wakes us. The wakeful soul at once begins to =
deal
with the obstruction, which was too much for the mechanical night-circuits.=
The
same holds good of dreams of imprisonment, or of creeping through narrow pa=
ssages.
They are direct transfers from the squeezing of the blood through constrict=
ed
arteries or heart chambers.
Most dreams are stimulated from the blood into=
the
nerves and the nerve-centers. And the heart is the transmission station. For
the blood has a unity and a consciousness of its own. It has a deeper, elem=
ental
consciousness of the mechanical or material world. In the blood we have the
body of our most elemental consciousness, our almost material consciousness.
And during sleep this material consciousness transfers itself into the nerv=
es
and to the brain. The transfer in wakefulness results in a feeling of pain =
or
discomfort--as when we have indigestion, which is pure blood-discomfort. Bu=
t in
sleep the transfer is made through the dream-images which are mechanical ph=
enomena
like mirages.
Nightmares which have purely mechanical images=
may
terrify us, give us a great shock, but the shock does not enter our souls. =
We
are surprised, in the morning, to find that the bristling horror of the nig=
ht
seems now just nothing--dwindled to nothing. And this is because what was a
purely material obstruction in the physical flow, temporary only, is indeed=
a
nothingness to the living, integral soul. We are subject to such accidents-=
-if
we will eat pancakes for supper. And that is the end of it.
But there are other dreams which linger and ha=
unt
the soul. These are true soul-dreams. As we know, life consists of reactions
and interrelations from the great centers of primary consciousness. I may s=
tart
a chain of connection from one center, which inevitably stimulates into
activity the corresponding center. For example, I may develop a profound and
passional love for my mother, in my days of adolescence. This starts,
willy-nilly, the whole activity of adult love at the lower centers. But
admission is made only of the upper, spiritual love, the love dynamically
polarized at the upper centers. Nevertheless, whether the admission is made=
or
not, once establish the circuit in the upper or spiritual centers of adult
love, and you will get a corresponding activity in the lower, passional cen=
ters
of adult love.
The activity at the lower center, however, is
denied in the daytime. There is a repression. Then the friction of the
night-flow liberates the repressed psychic activity explosively. And then t=
he
image of the mother figures in passionate, disturbing, soul-rending dreams.=
The Freudians point to this as evidence of a
repressed incest desire. The Freudians are too simple. It is always wrong to
accept a dream-meaning at its face value. Sleep is the time when we are giv=
en over
to the automatic processes of the inanimate universe. Let us not forget thi=
s.
Dreams are automatic in their nature. The psyche possesses remarkably few
dynamic images. In the case of the boy who dreams of his mother, we have the
aroused but unattached sex plunging in sleep, causing a sort of obstruction=
. We
have the image of the mother, the dynamic emotional image. And the automati=
sm
of the dream-process immediately unites the sex-sensation to the great stoc=
k image,
and produces an incest dream. But does this prove a repressed incest desire=
? On
the contrary.
The truth is, every man has, the moment he awa=
kes,
a hatred of his dream, and a great desire to be free of the dream, free of =
the persistent
mother-image or sister-image of the dream. It is a ghoul, it haunts his dre=
ams,
this image, with its hateful conclusions. And yet he cannot get free. As lo=
ng
as a man lives he may, in his dreams of passion or conflict, be haunted by =
the
mother-image or sister-image, even when he knows that the cause of the
disturbing dream is the wife. But even though the actual subject of the dre=
am
is the wife, still, over and over again, for years, the dream-process will
persist in substituting the mother-image. It haunts and terrifies a man.
Why does the dream-process act so? For two
reasons. First, the reason of simple automatic continuance. The mother-image
was the first great emotional image to be introduced in the psyche. The
dream-process mechanically reproduces its stock image the moment the intens=
e sympathy-emotion
is aroused. Again, the mother-image refers only to the upper plane. But the
dream-process is mechanical in its logic. Because the mother-image refers to
the great dynamic stress of the upper plane, therefore it refers to the gre=
at
dynamic stress of the lower. This is a piece of sheer automatic logic. The
living soul is not automatic, and automatic logic does not apply to it.
But for our second reason for the image. In
becoming the object of great emotional stress for her son, the mother also
becomes an object of poignancy, of anguish, of arrest, to her son. She arre=
sts
him from finding his proper fulfillment on the sensual plane. Now it is alm=
ost always
the object of arrest which becomes impressed, as it were, upon the psyche. A
man very rarely has an image of a person with whom he is livingly, vitally
connected. He only has dream-images of the persons who, in some way, oppose=
his
life-flow and his soul's freedom, and
so become impressed upon his plasm as objects =
of
resistance. Once a man is dynamically caught on the upper plane by mother or
sister, then the dream-image of mother or sister will persist until the dyn=
amic
rapport between himself and his mother or sister is finally broken. And the
dream-image from the upper plane will be automatically applied to the
disturbance of the lower plane.
Because--and this is very important--the
dream-process loves its own automatism. It would force everything to an
automatic-logical conclusion in the psyche. But the living, wakeful psyche =
is
so flexible and sensitive, it has a horror of automatism. While the soul re=
ally
lives, its deepest dread is perhaps the dread of automatism. For automatism=
in
life is a forestalling of the death process.
The living soul has its great fear. The living
soul fears the automatically logical conclusion of incest. Hence the
sleep-process invariably draws this conclusion. The dream-process, fiendish=
ly,
plays a triumph of automatism over us. But the dream-conclusion is almost i=
nvariably
just the reverse of the soul's desire, in any distress-dream. Popular
dream-telling understood this, and pronounced that you must read dreams
backwards. Dream of a wedding, and it means a funeral. Wish your friend wel=
l,
and fear his death, and you will dream of his funeral. Every desire has its
corresponding fear that the desire shall not be fulfilled. It is fear which
forms an arrest-point in the psyche, hence an image. So the dream automatic=
ally
produces the fear-image as the desire-image. If you secretly wished your en=
emy
dead, and feared he might flourish, the dream would present you with his
wedding.
Of course this rule of inversion is too simple=
to
hold good in all cases. Yet it is one of the most general rules for dreams,=
and
applies most often to desire-and-fear dreams of a psychic nature.
So that an incest-dream would not prove an
incest-desire in the living psyche. Rather the contrary, a living fear of t=
he
automatic conclusion: the soul's just dread of automatism. And though this =
may sound
like casuistry, I believe it does explain a good deal of the dream-trick.--=
That
which is lovely to the automatic process is hateful to the spontaneous soul.
The wakeful living soul fears automatism as it fears death: death being
automatic.
It seems to me these are the first two
dream-principles, and the two most important: the principle of automatism a=
nd
the principle of inversion. They will not resolve everything for us, but th=
ey
will help a great deal. We have to be very wary of giving way to dreams. It=
is really
a sin against ourselves to prostitute the living spontaneous soul to the
tyranny of dreams, or of chance, or fortune or luck, or any of the processe=
s of
the automatic sphere.
Then consider other dynamic dreams. First, the
dream-image generally. Any significant dream-image is usually an image or a
symbol of some arrest or scotch in the living spontaneous psyche. There is
another principle. But if the image is a symbol, then the only safe way to =
explain
the symbol is to proceed from the quality of emotion connected with the sym=
bol.
For example, a man has a persistent passionate
fear-dream about horses. He suddenly finds himself among great, physical
horses, which may suddenly go wild. Their great bodies surge madly round hi=
m,
they rear above him, threatening to destroy him. At any minute he may be tr=
ampled
down.
Now a psychoanalyst will probably tell you
off-hand that this is a father-complex dream. Certain symbols seem to be put
into complex catalogues. But it is all too arbitrary.
Examining the emotional reference we find that=
the
feeling is sensual, there is a great impression of the powerful, almost
beautiful physical bodies of the horses, the nearness, the rounded haunches,
the rearing. Is the dynamic passion in a horse the danger-passion? It is a
great sensual reaction at the sacral ganglion, a reaction of intense, sensu=
al,
dominant volition. The horse which rears and kicks and neighs madly acts fr=
om
the intensely powerful sacral ganglion. But this intense activity from the
sacral ganglion is male: the sacral ganglion is at its highest intensity in=
the
male. So that the horse-dream refers to some arrest in the deepest sensual
activity in the male. The horse is presented as an object of terror, which
means that to the man's automatic dream-soul, which loves automatism, the g=
reat
sensual male activity is the greatest menace. The automatic pseudo-soul, wh=
ich has
got the sensual nature repressed, would like to keep it repressed. Whereas =
the
greatest desire of the living spontaneous soul is that this very male sensu=
al
nature, represented as a menace, shall be actually accomplished in life. The
spontaneous self is secretly yearning for the liberation and fulfillment of=
the
deepest and most powerful sensual nature. There may be an element of
father-complex. The horse may also refer to the powerful sensual being in t=
he
father. The dream may mean a love of the dreamer for the sensual male who i=
s his
father. But it has nothing to do with incest. The love is probably a just l=
ove.
The bull-dream is a curious reversal. In the b=
ull
the centers of power are in the breast and shoulders. The horns of the head=
are
symbols of this vast power in the upper self. The woman's fear of the bull =
is a
great terror of the dynamic upper centers in man. The bull's horns, instead=
of
being phallic, represent the enormous potency of the upper centers. A woman
whose most positive dynamism is in the breast and shoulders is fascinated by
the bull. Her dream-fear of the bull and his horns which may run into her m=
ay
be reversed to a significance of desire for connection, not from the center=
s of
the lower, sensual self, but from the intense physical centers of the upper
body: the phallus polarized from the upper centers, and directed towards th=
e great
breast center of the woman. Her wakeful fear is terror of the great
breast-and-shoulder, upper rage and power of man, which may pierce her
defenseless lower self. The terror and the desire are near together--and go=
with
an admiration of the slender, abstracted bull loins.
Other dream-fears, or strong dream-impressions,
may be almost imageless. They may be a great terror, for example, of a pure=
ly geometric
figure--a figure from pure geometry, or an example of pure mathematics. Or =
they
may have no image, but only a sensation of smell, or of color, or of sound.=
These are the dream-fears of the soul which is
falling out of human integrity into the purely mechanical mode. If we ideal=
ize
ourselves sufficiently, the spontaneous centers do at last work only, or al=
most
only, in the mechanical mode. They have no dynamic relation with another be=
ing.
They cannot have. Their whole power of dynamic relationship is quenched. Th=
ey
act now in reference purely to the mechanical world, of force and matter,
sensation and law. So that in dream-activity sensation or abstraction, abst=
ract
law or calculation occurs as the predominant or exclusive image. In the dre=
am
there may be a sensation of admiration or delight. The waking sensation is =
fear.
Because the soul fears above all things its fall from individual integrity =
into
the mechanic activity of the outer world, which is the automatic death-worl=
d.
And this is our danger to-day. We tend, through
deliberate idealism or deliberate material purpose, to destroy the soul in =
its
first nature of spontaneous, integral being, and to substitute the second
nature, the automatic nature of the mechanical universe. For this purpose w=
e stay
up late at night, and we rise late in the morning.
To stay up late into the night is always bad. =
Let
us be as ideal as we may, when the sun goes down the natural mode of life
changes in us. The mind changes its activity. As the soul gradually goes
passive, before yielding up its sway, the mind falls into its second phase =
of activity.
It collects the results of the spent day into consciousness, lays down the
honey of quiet thought, or the bitter-sweet honey of the gathered flower. I=
t is
the consciousness of that which is past. Evening is our time to read history
and tragedy and romance--all of which are the utterance of that which is pa=
st,
that which is over, that which is finished, is concluded: either sweetly
concluded, or bitterly. Evening is the time for this.
But evening is the time also for revelry, for
drink, for passion. Alcohol enters the blood and acts as the sun's rays act=
. It
inflames into life, it liberates into energy and consciousness. But by a pr=
ocess
of combustion. That life of the day which we have not lived, by means of
sun-born alcohol we can now flare into sensation, consciousness, energy and
passion, and live it out. It is a liberation from the laws of idealism, a
release from the restriction of control and fear. It is the blood bursting =
into
consciousness. But naturally the course of the liberated consciousness may =
be
in either direction: sharper mental action, greater fervor of spiritual
emotion, or deeper sensuality. Nowadays the last is becoming much more unus=
ual.
The active mind-consciousness of the night is a
form of retrospection, or else it is a form of impulsive exclamation, direc=
t from
the blood, and unbalanced. Because the active physical consciousness of the
night is the blood-consciousness, the most elemental form of consciousness.
Vision is perhaps our highest form of dynamic upper consciousness. But our
deepest lower consciousness is blood-consciousness.
And the dynamic lower centers are swayed from =
the
blood. When the blood rouses into its night intensity, it naturally kindles
first the lowest dynamic centers. It transfers its voice and its fire to th=
e great
hypogastric plexus, which governs, with the help of the sacral ganglion, the
flow of urine through us, but which also voices the deep swaying of the blo=
od
in sex passion. Sex is our deepest form of consciousness. It is utterly non=
-ideal,
non-mental. It is pure blood-consciousness. It is the basic consciousness of
the blood, the nearest thing in us to pure material consciousness. It is th=
e consciousness
of the night, when the soul is almost asleep.
The blood-consciousness is the first and last
knowledge of the living soul: the depths. It is the soul acting in part onl=
y,
speaking with its first hoarse half-voice. And blood-consciousness cannot
operate purely until the soul has put off all its manifold degrees and form=
s of
upper consciousness. As the self falls back into quiescence, it draws itself
from the brain, from the great nerve-centers, into the blood, where at last=
it
will sleep. But as it draws and folds itself livingly in the blood, at the =
dark
and powerful hour, it sends out its great call. For even the blood is alone=
and
in part, and needs an answer. Like the waters of the Red Sea, the blood is
divided in a dual polarity between the sexes. As the night falls and the
consciousness sinks deeper, suddenly the blood is heard hoarsely calling.
Suddenly the deep centers of the sexual consciousness rouse to their sponta=
neous
activity. Suddenly there is a deep circuit established between me and the
woman. Suddenly the sea of blood which is me heaves and rushes towards the =
sea
of blood which is her. There is a moment of pure frictional crisis and cont=
act
of blood. And then all the blood in me ebbs back into its ways, transmuted,
changed. And this is the profound basis of my renewal, my deep blood renewa=
l.
And this has nothing to do with pretty faces or
white skin or rosy breasts or any of the rest of the trappings of sexual lo=
ve.
These trappings belong to the day. Neither eyes nor hands nor mouth have an=
ything
to do with the final massive and dark collision of the blood in the sex cri=
sis,
when the strange flash of electric transmutation passes through the blood of
the man and the blood of the woman. They fall apart and sleep in their
transmutation.
But even in its profoundest, and most elemental
movements, the soul is still individual. Even in its most material
consciousness, it is still integral and individual. You would think the gre=
at
blood-stream of mankind was one and homogeneous. And it is indeed more near=
ly
one, more near to homogeneity than anything else within us. The blood-strea=
m of
mankind is almost homogeneous.
But it isn't homogeneous. In the first place, = it is dual in a perfect dark dynamic polarity, the sexual polarity. No getting away from the fact that the blood of woman is dynamically polarized in opposition, or in difference to the blood of man. The crisis of their conta= ct in sex connection is the moment of establishment of a new flashing circuit throughout the whole sea: the dark, burning red waters of our under-world rocking in a new dynamic rhythm in each of us. And then in the second place, the blood of an individual is his own blood. That is, it is individual. And though we have a potential dynamic sexual connection, we men, with almost e= very woman, yet the great outstanding fact of the individuality even of the blood makes us need a corresponding individuality in the woman we are to embrace.= The more individual the man or woman, the more unsatisfactory is a non-individu= al connection: promiscuity. The more individual, the more does our blood cry o= ut for its own specific answer, an individual woman, blood-polarized with us.<= o:p>
We have made the mistake of idealism again. We
have thought that the woman who thinks and talks as we do will be the
blood-answer. And we force it to be so. To our disaster. The woman who thin=
ks
and talks as we do is almost sure to have no dynamic blood-polarity with us.
The dynamic blood-polarity would make her different from me, and not like m=
e in
her thought mode. Blood-sympathy is so much deeper than thought-mode, that =
it
may result in very different expression, verbally.
We have made the mistake of turning life inside
out: of dragging the day-self into the night, and spreading the night-self =
over
into the day. We have made love and sex a matter of seeing and hearing and =
of day-conscious
manipulation. We have made men and women come together on the grounds of th=
is
superficial likeness and commonalty--their mental, and upper sympathetic
consciousness. And so we have forced the blood to submission. Which means we
force it into disintegration.
We have too much light in the night, and too m=
uch
sleep in the day. It is an evil thing for us to prolong as we do the mental,
visual, ideal consciousness far into the night when the hour has come for t=
his
upper consciousness to fade, for the blood alone to know and to act. By pro=
voking
the reaction of the great blood-stress, the sex-reaction, from the upper, o=
uter
mental consciousness and mental lasciviousness of conscious purpose, we the=
reby
destroy the very blood in our bodies. We prevent it from having its own dyn=
amic
sway. We prevent it from coming to its own dynamic crisis and connection, f=
rom
finding its own fundamental being. No matter how we work our sex, from the
upper or outer consciousness, we don't achieve anything but the falsificati=
on and
impoverishment of our own blood-life. We have no choice. Either we must
withdraw from interference, or slowly deteriorate.
We have made a corresponding mistake in sleepi=
ng
on into the day. Once the sun rises our constitution changes. Once the sun =
is
well up our sleep--supposing our life fairly normal--is no longer truly sle=
ep. When
the sun comes up the centers of active dynamic upper consciousness begin to
wake. The blood changes its vibration and even its chemical constitution. A=
nd
then we too ought to wake. We do ourselves great damage by sleeping too long
into the day. The half-hour's sleep after midday meal is a readjustment. But
the long hours of morning sleep are just a damage. We submit our now active=
centers
of upper consciousness to the dominion of the blood-automatic flow. We chain
ourselves down in our morning sleep. We transmute the morning's blood-stren=
gth
into false dreams and into an ever-increasing force of inertia. And natural=
ly,
in the same line of inertia we persist from bad to worse.
With the result that our chained-down, active
nerve-centers are half-shattered before we arise. We never become newly
day-conscious, because we have subjected our powerful centers of
day-consciousness to be trampled and wasted into dreams and inertia by the
heavy flow of the blood-automatism in the morning sleeps. Then we arise wit=
h a feeling
of the monotony and automatism of life. There is no good, glad refreshing. =
We
feel tired to start with. And so we protract our day-consciousness on into =
the
night, when we do at last begin to come awake, and we tell ourselves we must
sleep, sleep, sleep in the morning and the daytime. It is better to sleep o=
nly
six hours than to prolong sleep on and on when the sun has risen. Every man=
and
woman should be forced out of bed soon after the sun has risen: particularl=
y the
nervous ones. And forced into physical activity. Soon after dawn the vast
majority of people should be hard at work. If not, they will soon be nervou=
sly
diseased.
=
So it
comes about that the moon is the planet of our nights, as the sun of our da=
ys.
And this is not just accidental, or even mechanical. The influence of the m=
oon
upon the tides and upon us is not just an accident in phenomena. It is the
result of the creation of the universe by life itself. It was life itself w=
hich
threw the moon apart on the one hand, the sun on the other. And it is life
itself which keeps the dynamic-vital relation constant between the moon and=
the
living individuals of the globe. The moon is as dependent upon the life of
individuals, for her continued existence, as each single individual is
dependent upon the moon.
The same with the sun. The sun sets and has his
perfect polarity in the life-circuit established between him and all living
individuals. Break that circuit, and the sun breaks. Without man, beasts, b=
utterflies,
trees, toads, the sun would gutter out like a spent lamp. It is the
life-emission from individuals which feeds his burning and establishes his
sun-heart in its powerful equilibrium.
The same with the moon. She lives from us,
primarily, and we from her. Everything is a question of relativity. Not onl=
y is
every force relative to other force or forces, but every existence is relat=
ive
to other existences. Not only does the life of man depend on man, beast, and
herb, but on the sun and moon, and the stars. And in another manner, the
existence of the moon depends absolutely on the life of herb, beast, and ma=
n.
The existence of the moon depends upon the life of individuals, that which
alone is original. Without the life of individuals the moon would fall asun=
der.
And the moon particularly, because she is polarized dynamically to this, our
own earth. We do not know what far-off life breathes between the stars and =
the
sun. But our life alone supports the moon. Just as the moon is the pole of =
our single
terrestrial individuality.
Therefore we must know that between the moon a=
nd
each individual being exists a vital dynamic flow. The life of individuals
depends directly upon the moon, just as the moon depends directly upon the =
life
of individuals.
But in what way does the life of individuals
depend directly upon the moon?
The moon is the mother of darkness. She is the
clue to the active darkness. And we, below the waist, we have our being in
darkness. Below the waist we are sightless. When, in the daytime, our life =
is polarized
upwards, towards the open, sun-wakened eyes and the mind which sees in visi=
on,
then the powerful dynamic centers of the lower body act in subservience, in
their negative polarity. And then we flow upwards, we go forth seeking the
universe, in vision, speech, and thought--we go forth to see all things, to
hear all things, to know all things by acquaintance and by knowledge. One f=
lood
of dynamic flow are we, upwards polarized, in our tallness and our wide-eyed
spirit seeking to bring all the universe into the range of our conscious in=
dividuality,
and eager always to make new worlds, out of this old world, to bud new green
tips on the tree of life. Just as a tree would die if it were not making new
green tips upon all its vast old world of a body, so the whole universe wou=
ld
perish if man and beast and herb were not always putting forth a newness: t=
he
toad taking a vivider color, spreading his hands a little more gently,
developing a more rusé intelligence, the birds adding a new note to
their speech and song, a new sharp swerve to their flight, a new nicety to
their nests; and man, making new worlds, new civilizations. If it were not =
for
this striving into new creation on the part of living individuals, the univ=
erse
would go dead, gradually, gradually and fall asunder. Like a tree that ceas=
es
to put forth new green tips, and to advance out a little further.
But each new tip arises out of the apparent de=
ath
of the old, the preceding one. Old leaves have got to fall, old forms must =
die.
And if men must at certain periods fall into death in millions, why, so mus=
t the
leaves fall every single autumn. And dead leaves make good mold. And so dead
men. Even dead men's souls.
So if death has to be the goal for a great num=
ber,
then let it be so. If America must invent this poison-gas, let her. When de=
ath
is our goal of goals we shall invent the means of death, let our profession=
s of
benevolence be what they will.
But this time, it seems to me, we have conscio=
usly
and responsibly to carry ourselves through the winter-period, the period of
death and denudation: that is, some of us have, some nation even must. For =
there
are not now, as in the Roman times, any great reservoirs of energetic barba=
ric
life. Goths, Gauls, Germans, Slavs, Tartars. The world is very full of peop=
le,
but all fixed in civilizations of their own, and they all have all our vice=
s,
all our mechanisms, and all our means of destruction. This time, the leading
civilization cannot die out as Greece, Rome, Persia died. It must suffer a
great collapse, maybe. But it must carry through all the collapse the living
clue to the next civilization. It's no good thinking we can leave it to Chi=
na or
Japan or India or Africa--any of the great swarms.
And here we are, we don't look much like carry=
ing
through to a new era. What have we got that will carry through? The latest
craze is Mr. Einstein's Relativity Theory. Curious that everybody catches f=
ire
at the word Relativity. There must be something in the mere suggestion, whi=
ch
we have been waiting for. But what? As far as I can see, Relativity means, =
for
the common amateur mind, that there is no one absolute force in the physical
universe, to which all other forces may be referred. There is no one single
absolute central principle governing the world. The great cosmic forces or
mechanical principles can only be known in their relation to one another, a=
nd
can only exist in their relation to one another. But, says Einstein, this
relation between the mechanical forces is constant, and may be expressed by=
a mathematical
formula: which mathematical formula may be used to equate all mechanical fo=
rces
of the universe.
I hope that is not scientifically all wrong. I=
t is
what I understand of the Einstein theory. What I doubt is the equation form=
ula.
It seems to me, also, that the velocity of light through space is the deus =
ex machina
in Einstein's physics. Somebody will some day put salt on the tail of light=
as
it travels through space, and then its simple velocity will split up into
something complex, and the Relativity formula will fall to bits.--But I am a
confirmed outsider, so I'll hold my tongue.
All I know is that people have got the word
Relativity into their heads, and catch-words always refer to some latent id=
ea
or conception in the popular mind. It has taken a Jew to knock the last
center-pin out of our ideally spinning universe. The Jewish intelligence fo=
r centuries
has been picking holes in our ideal system--scientific and sociological. Ve=
ry
good thing for us. Now Mr. Einstein, we are glad to say, has pulled out the
very axle pin. At least that is how the vulgar mind understands it. The
equation formula doesn't count.--So now, the universe, according to the pop=
ular
mind, can wobble about without being pinned down.--Really, an anarchical
conclusion. But the Jewish mind insidiously drives us to anarchical
conclusions. We are glad to be driven from false, automatic fixities, anyho=
w.
And once we are driven right on to nihilism we may find a way through.
So, there is nothing absolute left in the
universe. Nothing. Lord Haldane says pure knowledge is absolute. As far as =
it
goes, no doubt. But pure knowledge is only such a tiny bit of the universe,=
and
always relative to the thing known and to the knower.
I feel inclined to Relativity myself. I think
there is no one absolute principle in the universe. I think everything is
relative. But I also feel, most strongly, that in itself each individual li=
ving
creature is absolute: in its own being. And that all things in the universe=
are
just relative to the individual living creature. And that individual living
creatures are relative to each other.
And what about a goal? There is no final goal.=
But
every step taken has its own little relative goal. So what about the next s=
tep?
Well, first and foremost, that every individual
creature shall come to its own particular and individual fullness of
being.--Very nice, very pretty--but how? Well, through a living dynamic
relation to other creatures.--Very nice again, pretty little adjectives. But
what sort of a living dynamic relation?--Well, not the relation of love, th=
at's
one thing, nor of brotherhood, nor equality. The next relation has got to b=
e a
relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and respo=
nsibility,
service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. Men have got to choose
their leaders, and obey them to the death. And it must be a system of
culminating aristocracy, society tapering like a pyramid to the supreme lea=
der.
All of which sounds very distasteful at the
moment. But upon all the vital lessons we have learned during our era of lo=
ve
and spirit and democracy we can found our new order.
We wanted to be all of a piece. And we couldn't
bring it off. Because we just aren't all of a piece. We wanted first to have
nothing but nice daytime selves, awfully nice and kind and refined. But it
didn't work. Because whether we want it or not, we've got night-time selves=
. And
the most spiritual woman ever born or made has to perform her natural funct=
ions
just like anybody else. We must always keep in line with this fact.
Well, then, we have night-time selves. And the
night-self is the very basis of the dynamic self. The blood-consciousness a=
nd
the blood-passion is the very source and origin of us. Not that we can stay=
at
the source. Nor even make a goal of the source, as Freud does. The business=
of
living is to travel away from the source. But you must start every single d=
ay
fresh from the source. You must rise every day afresh out of the dark sea of
the blood.
When you go to sleep at night, you have to say:
"Here dies the man I am and know myself to be." And when you rise=
in
the morning you have to say: "Here rises an unknown quantity which is
still myself."
The self which rises naked every morning out of
the dark sleep of the passionate, hoarsely-calling blood: this is the unit =
for
the next society. And the polarizing of the passionate blood in the individ=
ual towards
life, and towards leader, this must be the dynamic of the next civilization=
. The
intense, passionate yearning of the soul towards the soul of a stronger,
greater individual, and the passionate blood-belief in the fulfillment of t=
his
yearning will give men the next motive for life.
We have to sink back into the darkness and the
elemental consciousness of the blood. And from this rise again. But there i=
s no
rising until the bath of darkness and extinction is accomplished.
As social units, as civilized men we have to do
what we do as physical organisms. Every day, the sun sets from the sky, and
darkness falls, and every day, when this happens, the tide of life turns in=
us.
Instead of flowing upwards and outwards towards mental consciousness and
activity, it turns back, to flow downwards. Downwards towards the digestion
processes, downwards further to the great sexual conjunctions, downwards to
sleep.
This is the soul now retreating, back from the
outer life of day, back to the origins. And so, it stays its hour at the fi=
rst
great sensual stations, the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion. But the t=
ide
ebbs on, down to the immense, almost inhuman passionate darkness of sex, the
strange and moon-like intensity of the hypogastric plexus and the sacral
ganglion, then deep, deeper, past the last great station of the darkest psy=
che,
down to the earth's center. Then we sleep.
And the moon is the tide-turner. The moon is t=
he
great cosmic pole which calls us back, back out of our day-self, back throu=
gh
the moonlit darknesses of the sensual planes, to sleep. It is the moon that
sways the blood, and sways us back into the extinction of the blood.--And as
the soul retreats back into the sea of its own darkness, the mind, stage by
stage, enjoys the mental consciousness that belongs to this retreat back in=
to
the sensual deeps; and then it goes extinguished. There is sleep.
And so we resolve back towards our elementals.=
We
dissolve back, out of the upper consciousness, out of mind and sight and
speech, back, down into the deep and massive, swaying consciousness of the
dark, living blood. At the last hour of sex I am no more than a powerful wa=
ve
of mounting blood. Which seeks to surge and join with the answering sea in =
the
other individual. When the sea of individual blood which I am at that hour
heaves and finds its pure contact with the sea of individual blood which is=
the
woman at that hour, then each of us enters into the wholeness of our deeper
infinitude, our profound fullness of being, in the ocean of our oneness and=
our
consciousness.
This is under the spell of the moon, of sea-bo=
rn
Aphrodite, mother and bitter goddess. For I am carried away from my sunny
day-self into this other tremendous self, where knowledge will not save me,=
but
where I must obey as the sea obeys the tides. Yet however much I go, I know
that I am all the while myself, in my going.
This then is the duality of my day and my night
being: a duality so bitter to an adolescent. For the adolescent thinks with
shame and terror of his night. He would wish to have no night-self. But it =
is Moloch,
and he cannot escape it.
The tree is born of its roots and its leaves. =
And
we of our days and our nights. Without the night-consummation we are trees
without roots.
And the night-consummation takes place under t=
he
spell of the moon. It is one pure motion of meeting and oneing. But even so=
, it
is a circuit, not a straight line. One pure motion of meeting and oneing, u=
ntil
the flash breaks forth, when the two are one. And this, this flashing momen=
t of
the ignition of two seas of blood, this is the moment of begetting. But the
begetting of a child is less than the begetting of the man and the woman. W=
oman
is begotten of man at that moment, into her greater self: and man is begott=
en
of woman. This is the main. And that which cannot be fulfilled, perfected in
the two individuals, that which cannot take fire into individual life, this=
trickles
down and is the seed of a new life, destined ultimately to fulfill that whi=
ch
the parents could not fulfill. So it is for ever.
Sex then is a polarization of the individual b=
lood
in man towards the individual blood in woman. It is more, also. But in its
prime functional reality it is this. And sex union means bringing into conn=
ection
the dynamic poles of sex in man and woman.
In sex we have our basic, most elemental being.
Here we have our most elemental contact. It is from the hypogastric plexus =
and
the sacral ganglion that the dark forces of manhood and womanhood sparkle. =
From
the dark plexus of sympathy run out the acute, intense sympathetic vibratio=
ns
direct to the corresponding pole. Or so it should be, in genuine passionate
love. There is no mental interference. There is even no interference of the
upper centers. Love is supposed to be blind. Though modern love wears strong
spectacles.
But love is really blind. Without sight or sce=
nt
or hearing the powerful magnetic current vibrates from the hypogastric plex=
us
in the female, vibrating on to the air like some intense wireless message. =
And
there is immediate response from the sacral ganglion in some male. And then
sight and day-consciousness begin to fade. In the lower animals apparently =
any
male can receive the vibration of any female: and if need be, even across l=
ong
distances of space. But the higher the development the more individual the
attunement. Every wireless station can only receive those messages which ar=
e in
its own vibration key. So with sex in specialized individuals. From the
powerful dynamic center the female sends out her dark summons, the intense =
dark
vibration of sex. And according to her nature, she receives her responses f=
rom
the males. The male enters the magnetic field of the female. He vibrates
helplessly in response. There is established at once a dynamic circuit, mor=
e or
less powerful. It would seem as if, while ever life remains free and wild a=
nd
independent, the sex-circuit, while it lasts, is omnipotent. There is one
electric flow which encompasses one male and one female, or one male and on=
e particular
group of females all polarized in the same key of vibration.
This circuit of vital sex magnetism, at first
loose and wide, gradually closes and becomes more powerful, contracts and g=
rows
more intense, until the two individuals arrive into contact. And even then =
the
pulse and flow of attraction and recoil varies. In free wild life, each tou=
ch
brings about an intense recoil, and each recoil causes an intense sympathet=
ic
attraction. So goes on the strange battle of desire, until the consummation=
is
reached.
It is the precise parallel of what happens in a
thunder-storm, when the dynamic forces of the moon and the sun come into
collision. The result is threefold: first, the electric flash, then the bir=
th
of pure water, new water.
So it is in sex relation. There is a threefold
result. First, the flash of pure sensation and of real electricity. Then th=
ere
is the birth of an entirely new state of blood in each partner. And then th=
ere
is the liberation.
But the main thing, as in the thunder-storm, is
the absolute renewal of the atmosphere: in this case, the blood. It would no
doubt be found that the electro-dynamic condition of the white and red
corpuscles of the blood was quite different after sex union, and that the
chemical composition of the fluid of the blood was quite changed.
And in this renewal lies the great magic of se=
x.
The life of an individual goes on apparently the same from day to day. But =
as a
matter of fact there is an inevitable electric accumulation in the nerves a=
nd
the blood, an accumulation which weighs there and broods there with intoler=
able
pressure. And the only possible means of relief and renewal is in pure
passional interchange. There is and must be a pure passional interchange fr=
om
the upper self, as when men unite in some great creative or religious or
constructive activity, or as when they fight each other to the death. The g=
reat
goal of creative or constructive activity, or of heroic victory in fight, m=
ust
always be the goal of the daytime self. But the very possibility of such a =
goal
arises out of the vivid dynamism of the conscious blood. And the blood in an
individual finds its great renewal in a perfected sex circuit.
A perfected sex circuit and a successful sex
union. And there can be no successful sex union unless the greater hope of
purposive, constructive activity fires the soul of the man all the time: or=
the
hope of passionate, purposive destructive activity: the two amount religiou=
sly
to the same thing, within the individual. Sex as an end in itself is a
disaster: a vice. But an ideal purpose which has no roots in the deep sea of
passionate sex is a greater disaster still. And now we have only these two =
things:
sex as a fatal goal, which is the essential theme of modern tragedy: or ide=
al
purpose as a deadly parasite. Sex passion as a goal in itself always leads =
to
tragedy. There must be the great purposive inspiration always present. But =
the automatic
ideal-purpose is not even a tragedy, it is a slow humiliation and sterility=
.
The great thing is to keep the sexes pure. And=
by
pure we don't mean an ideal sterile innocence and similarity between boy and
girl. We mean pure maleness in a man, pure femaleness in a woman. Woman is =
really
polarized downwards, towards the center of the earth. Her deep positivity i=
s in
the downward flow, the moon-pull. And man is polarized upwards, towards the=
sun
and the day's activity. Women and men are dynamically different, in everyth=
ing.
Even in the mind, where we seem to meet, we are really utter strangers. We =
may
speak the same verbal language, men and women: as Turk and German might both
speak Latin. But whatever a man says, his meaning is something quite differ=
ent
and changed when it passes through a woman's ears. And though you reverse t=
he
sexual polarity, the flow between the sexes, still the difference is the sa=
me.
The apparent mutual understanding, in companionship between a man and a wom=
an,
is always an illusion, and always breaks down in the end.
Woman can polarize her consciousness upwards. =
She
can obtain a hand even over her sex receptivity. She can divert even the
electric spasm of coition into her upper consciousness: it was the trick wh=
ich
the snake and the apple between them taught her. The snake, whose conscious=
ness
is only dynamic, and non-cerebral. The snake, who has no mental life, but o=
nly
an intensely vivid dynamic mind, he envied the human race its mental
consciousness. And he knew, this intensely wise snake, that the one way to =
make
humanity pay more than the price of mental consciousness was to pervert wom=
an
into mentality: to stimulate her into the upper flow of consciousness.
For the true polarity of consciousness in woma=
n is
downwards. Her deepest consciousness is in the loins and belly. Even when
perverted, it is so. The great flow of female consciousness is downwards, d=
own
to the weight of the loins and round the circuit of the feet. Pervert this,=
and
make a false flow upwards, to the breast and head, and you get a race of
"intelligent" women, delightful companions, tricky courtesans, cl=
ever
prostitutes, noble idealists, devoted friends, interesting mistresses,
efficient workers, brilliant managers, women as good as men at all the manly
tricks: and better, because they are so very headlong once they go in for m=
en's
tricks. But then, after a while, pop it all goes. The moment woman has got
man's ideals and tricks drilled into her, the moment she is competent in the
manly world--there's an end of it. She's had enough. She's had more than en=
ough.
She hates the thing she has embraced. She becomes absolutely perverse, and =
her
one end is to prostitute herself and her ideals to sex. Which is her busine=
ss
at the present moment.
We bruise the serpent's head: his flat and
brainless head. But his revenge of bruising our heel is a good one. The hee=
ls,
through which the powerful downward circuit flows: these are bruised in us,
numbed with a horrible neurotic numbness. The dark strong flow that polariz=
es us
to the earth's center is hampered, broken. We become flimsy fungoid beings,
with no roots and no hold in the earth, like mushrooms. The serpent has bru=
ised
our heel till we limp. The lame gods, the enslaved gods, the toiling limpers
moaning for the woman. You don't find the sun and moon playing at pals in t=
he
sky. Their beams cross the great gulf which is between them.
So with man and woman. They must stand clear
again. They must fight their way out of their self-consciousness: there is
nothing else. Or, rather, each must fight the other out of self-consciousne=
ss.
Instead of this leprous forbearance which we are taught to practice in our =
intimate
relationships, there should be the most intense open antagonism. If your wi=
fe
flirts with other men, and you don't like it, say so before them all, before
wife and man and all, say you won't have it. If she seems to you false, in =
any
circumstance, tell her so, angrily, furiously, and stop her. Never mind abo=
ut
being justified. If you hate anything she does, turn on her in a fury. Harry
her, and make her life a hell, so long as the real hot rage is in you. Don'=
t silently
hate her, or silently forbear. It is such a dirty trick, so mean and
ungenerous. If you feel a burning rage, turn on her and give it to her, and
never repent. It'll probably hurt you much more than it hurts her. But never
repent for your real hot rages, whether they're "justifiable" or =
not.
If you care one sweet straw for the woman, and if she makes you that you ca=
n't
bear any more, give it to her, and if your heart weeps tears of blood
afterwards, tell her you're thankful she's got it for once, and you wish she
had it worse.
The same with wives and their husbands. If a
woman's husband gets on her nerves, she should fly at him. If she thinks him
too sweet and smarmy with other people, she should let him have it to his n=
ose,
straight out. She should lead him a dog's life, and never swallow her bile.=
With wife or husband, you should never swallow
your bile. It makes you go all wrong inside. Always let fly, tooth and nail,
and never repent, no matter what sort of a figure you make.
We have a vice of love, of softness and sweetn=
ess
and smarminess and intimacy and promiscuous kindness and all that sort of
thing. We think it's so awfully nice of us to be like that, in ourselves. B=
ut
in our wives or our husbands it gets on our nerves horribly. Yet we think i=
t oughtn't
to, so we swallow our spleen.
We shouldn't. When Jesus said "if thine e=
ye
offend thee, pluck it out," he was beside the point. The eye doesn't
really offend us. We are rather fond of our own squint eye. It only offends=
the
person who cares for us. And it's up to this person to pluck it out.
This holds particularly good of the love and
intimacy vice. It'll never offend us in ourselves. While it will be gall and
wormwood to our wife or husband. And it is on this promiscuous love and
intimacy and kindness and sweetness, all a vice, that our self-consciousnes=
s really
rests. If we are battered out of this, we shall be battered out of
self-consciousness.
And so, men, drive your wives, beat them out of
their self-consciousness and their soft smarminess and good, lovely idea of=
themselves.
Absolutely tear their lovely opinion of themselves to tatters, and make them
look a holy ridiculous sight in their own eyes. Wives, do the same to your
husbands.
But fight for your life, men. Fight your wife =
out
of her own self-conscious preoccupation with herself. Batter her out of it =
till
she's stunned. Drive her back into her own true mode. Rip all her nice supe=
rimposed
modern-woman and wonderful-creature garb off her. Reduce her once more to a
naked Eve, and send the apple flying.
Make her yield to her own real unconscious sel=
f,
and absolutely stamp on the self that she's got in her head. Drive her forc=
ibly
back, back into her own true unconscious.
And then you've got a harder thing still to do.
Stop her from looking on you as her "lover." Cure her of that, if=
you
haven't cured her before. Put the fear of the Lord into her that way. And m=
ake
her know she's got to believe in you again, and in the deep purpose you sta=
nd for.
But before you can do that, you've got to stand for some deep purpose. It's=
no
good faking one up. You won't take a woman in, not really. Even when she
chooses to be taken in, for prettiness' sake, it won't do you any good.
But combat her. Combat her in her sexual
pertinacity, and in her secret glory or arrogance in the sexual goal. Combat
her in her cock-sure belief that she "knows" and that she is
"right." Take it all out of her. Make her yield once more to the =
male
leadership: if you've got anywhere to lead to. If you haven't, best leave t=
he
woman alone; she has one goal of her own, anyhow, and it's better than your=
nullity
and emptiness.
You've got to take a new resolution into your
soul, and break off from the old way. You've got to know that you're a man,=
and
being a man means you must go on alone, ahead of the woman, to break a way
through the old world into the new. And you've got to be alone. And you've =
got to
start off ahead. And if you don't know which direction to take, look round =
for
the man your heart will point out to you. And follow--and never look back.
Because if Lot's wife, looking back, was turned to a pillar of salt, these
miserable men, for ever looking back to their women for guidance, they are
miserable pillars of half-rotten tears.
You'll have to fight to make a woman believe in
you as a real man, a real pioneer. No man is a man unless to his woman he i=
s a
pioneer. You'll have to fight still harder to make her yield her goal to yo=
urs:
her night goal to your day goal. The moon, the planet of women, sways us ba=
ck
from our day-self, sways us back from our real social unison, sways us back,
like a retreating tide, in a friction of criticism and separation and social
disintegration. That is woman's inevitable mode, let her words be what they
will. Her goal is the deep, sensual individualism of secrecy and
night-exclusiveness, hostile, with guarded doors. And you'll have to fight =
very
hard to make a woman yield her goal to yours, to make her, in her own soul,
believe in your goal as the goal beyond, in her goal as the way by which you
go. She'll never believe until you have your soul filled with a profound and
absolutely inalterable purpose, that will yield to nothing, least of all to
her. She'll never believe until, in your soul, you are cut off and gone ahe=
ad,
into the dark.
She may of course already love you, and love y=
ou
for yourself. But the love will be a nest of scorpions unless it is
overshadowed by a little fear or awe of your further purpose, a living beli=
ef
in your going beyond her, into futurity.
But when once a woman does believe in her man,=
in
the pioneer which he is, the pioneer who goes on ahead beyond her, into the
darkness in front, and who may be lost to her for ever in this darkness; wh=
en
once she knows the pain and beauty of this belief, knows that the lonelines=
s of
waiting and following is inevitable, that it must be so; ah, then, how
wonderful it is! How wonderful it is to come back to her, at evening, as she
sits half in fear and waits! How good it is to come home to her! How good i=
t is
then when the night falls! How richly the evening passes! And then, for her=
, at
last, all that she has lost during the day to have it again between her arm=
s,
all that she has missed, to have it poured out for her, and a richness and a
wonder she had never expected. It is her hour, her goal. That's what it is =
to have
a wife.
Ah, how good it is to come home to your wife w=
hen
she believes in you and submits to your purpose that is beyond her. Then, h=
ow wonderful
this nightfall is! How rich you feel, tired, with all the burden of the day=
in
your veins, turning home! Then you too turn to your other goal: to the sple=
ndor
of darkness between her arms. And you know the goal is there for you: how r=
ich
that feeling is. And you feel an unfathomable gratitude to the woman who lo=
ves
you and believes in your purpose and receives you into the magnificent dark
gratification of her embrace. That's what it is to have a wife.
But no man ever had a wife unless he served a
great predominant purpose. Otherwise, he has a lover, a mistress. No matter=
how
much she may be married to him, unless his days have a living purpose, cons=
tructive
or destructive, but a purpose beyond her and all she stands for; unless his
days have this purpose, and his soul is really committed to his purpose, she
will not be a wife, she will be only a mistress and he will be her lover.
If the man has no purpose for his days, then to
the woman alone remains the goal of her nights: the great sex goal. And this
goal is no goal, but always cries for the something beyond: for the rising =
in the
morning and the going forth beyond, the man disappearing ahead into the
distance of futurity, that which his purpose stands for, the future. The sex
goal needs, absolutely needs, this further departure. And if there be no
further departure, no great way of belief on ahead: and if sex is the start=
ing
point and the goal as well: then sex becomes like the bottomless pit,
insatiable. It demands at last the departure into death, the only available
beyond. Like Carmen, or like Anna Karenina. When sex is the starting point =
and
the returning point both, then the only issue is death. Which is plain as a
pike-staff in "Carmen" or "Anna Karenina," and is the t=
heme
of almost all modern tragedy. Our one hackneyed, hackneyed theme. Ecstasies=
and
agonies of love, and final passion of death. Death is the only pure, beauti=
ful conclusion
of a great passion. Lovers, pure lovers should say "Let it be so."=
;
And one is always tempted to say "Let it =
be
so." But no, let it be not so. Only I say this, let it be a great pass=
ion
and then death, rather than a false or faked purpose. Tolstoi said
"No" to the passion and the death conclusion. And then drew into =
the
dreary issue of a false conclusion. His books were better than his life. Be=
tter
the woman's goal, sex and death, than some false goal of man's.
Better Anna Karenina and Vronsky a thousand ti=
mes
than Natasha and that porpoise of a Pierre. This pretty, slightly sordid co=
uple
tried so hard to kid themselves that the porpoise Pierre was puffing with g=
reat
purpose. Better Vronsky than Tolstoi himself, in my mind. Better Vronsky's
final statement: "As a soldier I am still some good. As a man I am a
ruin"--better that than Tolstoi and Tolstoi-ism and that beastly peasa=
nt
blouse the old man wore.
Better passion and death than any more of these
"isms." No more of the old purpose done up in aspic. Better passi=
on
and death.
But still--we might live, mightn't we?
For heaven's sake answer plainly "No,&quo=
t;
if you feel like it. No good temporizing.
=
"Tutti
i salmi finiscono in gloria."
All the psalms wind up with the Gloria.--"=
;As
it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without end.
Amen."
Well, then, Amen.
I hope you say Amen! along with me, dear little
reader: if there be any dear little reader who has got so far. If not, I say
Amen! all by myself.--But don't you think the show is all over. I've got
another volume up my sleeve, and after a year or two years, when I have sha=
ken it
down my sleeve, I shall bring it and lay it at the foot of your Liberty sta=
tue,
oh Columbia, as I do this one.
I suppose Columbia means the States.--"Ha= il Columbia!"--I suppose, etymologically, it is a nest of turtle-doves, L= at. columba, a dove. Coo me softly, then, Columbia; don't roar me like the suck= ing doves of the critics of my "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious."<= o:p>
And when I lay this little book at the foot of=
the
Liberty statue, that brawny lady is not to look down her nose and bawl: &qu=
ot;Do
you see any green in my eye?" Of course I don't, dear lady. I only see=
the
reflection of that torch--or is it a carrot?--which you are holding up to l=
ight
the way into New York harbor. Well, many an ass has strayed across the unea=
sy
paddock of the Atlantic, to nibble your carrot, dear lady. And I must say, =
you
can keep on slicing off nice little carrot-slices of guineas and doubloons =
for
an extraordinarily inexhaustible long time. And innumerable asses can colle=
ct
themselves nice little heaps of golden carrot-slices, and then lift up thei=
r heads
and brag over them with fairly pan-demoniac yells of gratification. Of cour=
se I
don't see any green in your eye, dear Libertas, unless it is the smallest g=
lint
from the carrot-tips. The gleam in your eye is golden, oh Columbia!
Nevertheless, and in spite of all this, up tro=
ts
this here little ass and makes you a nice present of this pretty book. You
needn't sniff, and glance at your carrot-sceptre, lady Liberty. You needn't
throw down the thinnest carrot-paring you can pare off, and then say: "=
;Why
should I pay for this tripe, this wordy mass of rather revolting nonsense!&=
quot;
You can't pay for it, darling. If I didn't make you a present of it you cou=
ld
never buy it. So don't shake your carrot-sceptre and feel supercilious. Her=
e's
a gift for you, Missis. You can look in its mouth, too. Mind it doesn't bite
you.--No, you needn't bother to put your carrot behind your back, nobody wa=
nts
to snatch it.
How do you do, Columbia! Look, I brought you a
posy: this nice little posy of words and wisdom which I made for you in the
woods of Ebersteinburg, on the borders of the Black Forest, near Baden Bade=
n, in
Germany, in this summer of scanty grace but nice weather. I made it special=
ly
for you--Whitman, for whom I have an immense regard, says "These
States." I suppose I ought to say: "Those States." If the pu=
blisher
would let me, I'd dedicate this book to you, to "Those States."
Because I wrote this book entirely for you, Columbia. You may not take it a=
s a
compliment. You may even smell a tiny bit of Schwarzwald sap in it, and be
finally disgusted. I admit that trees ought to think twice before they flou=
rish
in such a disgraced place as the Fatherland. "Chi va coi zoppi, all' a=
nno
zoppica." But you've not only to gather ye rosebuds while ye may, but
where ye may. And so, as I said before, the Black Forest, etc.
I know, Columbia, dear Libertas, you'll take my
posy and put your carrot aside for a minute, and smile, and say: "I'm
sure, Mr. Lawrence, it is a long time since I had such a perfectly beautifu=
l bunch
of ideas brought me." And I shall blush and look sheepish and say:
"So glad you think so. I believe you'll find they'll keep fresh quite a
long time, if you put them in water." Whereupon you, Columbia, with re=
al
American gallantry: "Oh, they'll keep for ever, Mr. Lawrence. They
couldn't be so cruel as to go and die, such perfectly lovely-colored ideas.
Lovely! Thank you ever, ever so much."
Just think of it, Columbia, how pleased we sha=
ll
be with one another: and how much nicer it will be than if you snorted
"High-falutin' Nonsense"--or "Wordy mass of repulsive
rubbish."
When they were busy making Italy, and were just
going to put it in the oven to bake: that is, when Garibaldi and Vittorio
Emmanuele had won their victories at Caserta, Naples prepared to give them =
a triumphant
entry. So there sat the little king in his carriage: he had short legs and =
huge
swagger mustaches and a very big bump of philoprogeniture. The town was all
done up, in spite of the rain. And down either side of the wide street were
hasty statues of large, well-fleshed ladies, each one holding up a fore-fin=
ger.
We don't know what the king thought. But the staff held their breath. The
king's appetite for strapping ladies was more than notorious, and naturally=
it
looked as if Naples had done it on purpose.
As a matter of fact, the fore-finger meant Ita=
lia
Una! "Italy shall be one." Ask Don Sturzo.
Now you see how risky statues are. How many ni=
ce
little asses and poets trot over the Atlantic and catch sight of Liberty
holding up this carrot of desire at arm's length, and fairly hear her say, =
as
one does to one's pug dog, with a lump of sugar: "Beg! Beg!"--and
"Jump! Jump, then!" And each little ass and poodle begins to beg =
and
to jump, and there's a rare game round about Liberty, zap, zap, zapperty-za=
p!
Do lower the carrot, gentle Liberty, and let us
talk nicely and sensibly. I don't like you as a carotaia, precious.
Talking about the moon, it is thrilling to read
the announcements of Professor Pickering of Harvard, that it's almost a dead
cert that there's life on our satellite. It is almost as certain that there=
's life
on the moon as it is certain there is life on Mars. The professor bases his
assertions on photographs--hundreds of photographs--of a crater with a
circumference of thirty-seven miles. I'm not satisfied. I demand to know the
yards, feet and inches. You don't come it over me with the triteness of the=
se
round numbers.
"Hundreds of photographic reproductions h=
ave
proved irrefutably the springing up at dawn, with an unbelievable rapidity,=
of
vast fields of foliage which come into blossom just as rapidly (sic!) and w=
hich
disappear in a maximum period of eleven days."--Again I'm not satisfie=
d. I
want to know if they're cabbages, cress, mustard, or marigolds or dandelion=
s or
daisies. Fields of foliage, mark you. And blossom! Come now, if you can get=
so
far, Professor Pickering, you might have a shrewd guess as to whether the
blossoms are good to eat, or if they're purely for ornament.
I am only waiting at last for an aeroplane to =
land
on one of these fields of foliage and find a donkey grazing peacefully.
Hee-haw!
"The plates moreover show that great
blizzards, snow-storms, and volcanic eruptions are also frequent." So =
no
doubt the blossoms are edelweiss.
"We find," says the professor, "=
;a
living world at our very doors where life in some respects resembles that of
Mars." All I can say is: "Pray come in, Mr. Moony. And how is your
cousin Signor Martian?"
Now I'm sure Professor Pickering's photographs=
and
observations are really wonderful. But his explanations! Come now, Columbia,
where is your High-falutin' Nonsense trumpet? Vast fields of foliage which =
spring
up at dawn (!!!) and come into blossom just as quickly (!!!!) are rather too
flowery even for my flowery soul. But there, truth is stranger than fiction=
.
I'll bet my moon against the Professor's, anyh=
ow.
So long, Columbia. A riverderci.