What Is and What Might Be Part 12

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

[25] There is of course an intermediate cla.s.s of vicious tendencies, which may be described as apparent rather than actual, and which are caused partly by immaturity, partly by environment.

Many of the "naughtinesses" of school children belong to this cla.s.s.

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

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

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

[29] See also footnote 2 to page 270.

[30] When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, there was one at least of my friends who took a genuine delight in the literary masterpieces of Greece and Rome,--the delight, not of a fastidious scholar but of a born lover of good literature. He got a "Third" in Cla.s.sical "Mods," and was "gulfed" in "Greats." "Serve him right,"

his "dons" must have said, for I am afraid he cut their lectures.

[Greek: hos apoloito kai allos hotis toiauta ge rhezoi.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE END