The human race since it began to think and believe has thought of and believed in immortality. The half wise declare that belief in immortality and a spirit world came to savage peoples through dreams, that it has been kept alive through superst.i.tion and the power of religion. Trivial, certainly, is such an explanation of a phenomenon as wide as mankind"s existence. ----
A very consoling fact for the doubter is this. The strongest minds born on the earth have almost invariably, at some stage of development, rejected belief in immortality--only to return to the belief, or at least to the HOPE, with fuller age and riper wisdom. That no great mind has seen any positive argument against the hope of immortality is certainly comforting to all of us. Intelligence can always refute improbability and falsehood.
What about the nature of immortality? The Indian hopes for dogs and hunting, the Turk for a life of which the least said the better. The Christian, borrowing his ideas from the writings of the old Hebrews, looks forward to what may be called a solid gold existence--everything made of gold or of something more expensive.
We do not think that religious docility demands implicit belief in any of the published details of our future existence. Gold is not comfortable; jasper would not well replace the green turf.
Is it not more reasonable to a.s.sume, since immortality is to be ours, that it is ours now and always has been? We cannot imagine creation of the indestructible. Is it not sensible to take literally that most beautiful invocation: "Thy kingdom come ON EARTH as it is in heaven"?
We know that heaven cannot be above us or h.e.l.l below; because as we whirl round in each twenty-four hour period those abodes would have to whirl also--quite unreasonable. ----
This earth would make a very good heaven--properly improved and managed. Wipe out human selfishness, and the Sahara and other deserts. Establish universal philanthropy, regulate the climate, confine human manual labor to the pushing of an electric b.u.t.ton--all quite possible--and you have the sort of heaven that man would select if left to choose.
Why should we not come back here again and again, taking varying human forms, doing our duty well or badly each time according to our start in life, and finally enjoying perfect terrestrial happiness here as a finished race of immortal beings--immortal in the sense of being indestructible and of possessing the gift of perpetual reincarnation? ----
Now, this earthly reincarnation idea is what we have been driving at since the beginning of this particular article. What is the argument against prior and subsequent existence here? It is this:
"If I am to live here again, I must have lived here before. If I have lived here before I do not know it, and I do not look forward with pleasure to future existence here in which I shall not know myself."
This is a reasonable objection, certainly. Reincarnation without consciousness of former existences would miss half the fun. ----
But it is possible to be in too much of a hurry. Let us suppose that as yet we are not sufficiently developed to carry from one existence to another the memory of former existence. Suppose the time is to come when we shall suddenly advance as far beyond this intellectual stage as this stage of intellect is beyond that of the Bushman. Is it not conceivable that we may suddenly be enabled to recall all former existences and to remember all the various happenings of our former lives? May we not say, "There is Mrs. Jones. I was married to her six million years ago, and we quarrelled"? It seems quite hopeable.
You cannot deny that it is possible. For instance: You now lead a continuous existence. You know that you were alive three days ago and you remember what you did then. But a baby four weeks old does NOT know that he was alive three days ago and he does not know what he did then. He has not reached a stage where his mind can grasp even the fact of continuous existence. We may not have reached a stage enabling us to grasp continuous reincarnation.
Think of this, and see if you cannot get some comfort, or at least some amusing speculation out of it. ----
Science admits and thinks it proves that the inorganic atom of matter is indestructible--that it persists forever. Why should we not admit--and ultimately prove--that the atom of organic force called a soul is indestructible and exists forever?
Every atom of matter, every particle of force, existing in the visible universe will continue to exist billions of centuries after the universe shall have melted and lost its present shape.
The nail on your finger will exist as separate atoms when the Milky Way shall have faded from the heavens. How does that strike you for immortality?
We predict that the mysterious force-atom called your soul will exist AND KNOW ITSELF AND ITS FRIENDS ten thousand billions of centuries from now and be as young as ever.
DISCONTENT THE MOTIVE POWER OF PROGRESS
At first the baby lies fiat on his back, eyes staring up at the ceiling.
By and by he gets tired of lying on his back. DISCONTENT with his condition makes him wriggle and wriggle. At last he succeeds in turning over.
If he were contented then, there would be no men on earth--only huge babies. But DISCONTENT again seizes him, and through discontent he learns to crawl.
Crawling--travelling on hands and knees--satisfied lower forms of animal life. It used to satisfy us, in the old days of early evolutionary stages.
But the human infant--thanks to inborn cravings--is DISCONTENTED with crawling. With much trouble and risk and many feeble totterings, he learns to walk erect. He gets up into a position that takes his eyes off the ground. He is able to look at the sun and stars and takes the position of a man. DISCONTENT is his mainspring at every stage. ----
What discontent does in the limited life of a child, it does on a much larger scale in the life of a man--and on a scale still larger in the life of a race.
You can always tell when a man has reached the limit of his possible development. He ceases to be discontented--or at least to show discontent actively.
Contentment, apathy, are signs of decadence and of a career ended in either a man or a nation.
If a baby lies still, no longer wiggling or trying to swallow his toe, you may be sure that he is seriously ill. The nation that no longer wiggles is in a condition as serious as that of the motionless infant. ----
The man or newspaper which imparts dissatisfaction--wise discontent to a nation or to individuals, gives them the motive power that brings improvement.
Ruskin as a young man declared that his one hope in life was to arouse "some dissatisfaction."
The constant aim of men in talking to each other, in writing for newspapers, even in writing novels, should be to arouse discontent.
In this column, as our readers will have noticed, the constant aim is to make the great crowd dissatisfied.
Only through discontent can changes come and are there not causes enough for discontent and need enough for changes?
A majority of the people half educated, and tens of thousands half fed.
Children run over daily because they have no playground but the gutter.
Men of n.o.ble aspirations kept down by hard work and poverty.
Children left locked up alone all day while their mothers work for a pittance.
Men, uncertain of their future and of their children"s future, engage in a constant struggle for wealth that is not needed--a struggle that develops in the end a pa.s.sion as useless as it is degrading.
Unless you believe that the world is perfect because YOU happen to have enough to eat and to wear, you should be discontented.
You should remember that the world"s achievements and great changes have all come from discontent, and you should be, in as many ways as possible, a breeder of discontent among the human beings around you.
THE AUTOMOBILE WILL MAKE US MORE HUMAN
One of the commonest and most disagreeable sights in a big city is that of a strong, brutal human being beating a weak and overworked horse because it refuses to do what it cannot do.
Brutality inflicted upon horses is atrocious. But the bad effect of such unkind treatment of animals on HUMAN CHARACTER is far more serious than the actual physical suffering inflicted. ----
The perfection of the automobile will do much to improve human beings by taking away from their control and from brutal coercion submissive animals.
Everybody knows that the moral standard is raised immediately in a country when slavery is abolished.
In America we have abolished the slavery of human beings, but we still adhere to horse slavery, accompanied by all the worst forms of the old negro slavery. The faithful slave may be beaten and driven to death. The driver MUST BE BRUTALIZED.
Every day, on every street, you may see stupid, muscular boys and men jerking with all their might on the tender mouths of poor horses, only too willing to do their best.
This brutal indifference to the sufferings of animals makes us brutal and indifferent in other directions.