CHAPTER VIII

THE SUPREME ETHICAL RULE (_Continued_)

Whatever the steps that have thus far been taken, they are preliminary to the final step. And the _method_ of “salvation,” the distinctive feature wherein this ethical system differs from others, may now be briefly stated. So act as to elicit the unique personality in others, and _thereby_ in thyself. Salvation is found in the effort to save others! The difference in method consists in the joint pursuit of the two ends, that of the other and that of the self. The controlling idea is that the _numen_ in the self is raised out of potentiality into actuality by the energy put forth to raise the _numen_ in the other,—the two divinities greeting each other as simultaneously they rise into the light.

It is thus that both egoism and altruism are transcended. To be egoistic is to assert one’s empirical self at the expense of other empirical selves. To be altruistic is to prefer the empirical selves of others to one’s own. It is not true that self-realization, keeping to the empirical signification of self, leads insensibly to altruistic conduct. The life of the great “self-realizer,” Goethe, may be cited in evidence of this. Nor is it true that preference for the empirical self of another necessarily involves maintaining the integrity of one’s own empirical self. In the empirical field egoism and altruism are conflicting and mutually contradictory. It is in the spiritual field that they cease to be so, because both disappear in an object of the will which includes them both and transcends them both. If this be so, it may be asked why does the formula we have adopted read: So act as to elicit the unique personality in others, and thereby in thyself? Why not conversely:—So act as to realize the unique personality in thyself, and thereby in others?—since in any case the ends in view are to be achieved conjointly. The answer is that in the pure spiritual field, in the world of ideal ethical units, it would make no difference from which point of view the relation were regarded. But when the spiritual formula is applied as a regulative rule to the mutual relations of empirical beings there is a difference. Thus applied, it must necessarily be couched in such terms as will make the spiritual birth of the other the prime object, and the spiritual birth of the self its incidental though inseparable concomitant. This is so because ethics is a science of energetics, which has to do with the potencies of our nature in their most affirmative efferent expression. All our higher faculties are active, and touch for good or ill the lives of those who surround us. Even the secret thoughts which seem only to affect our own individuality, inevitably project their influence upon our associates.

Now ethics is a science of _right_ energizing. And since as a matter of fact we do inevitably energize in such a manner as to affect others, the fundamental question in ethics is: how are we to regulate the incidences of our natures that fall upon other lives so that they shall be right? Since we cannot help acting upon them and influencing them, how can we act rightly toward them and rightly influence them? And the rule supplied by the ethical principle is: Act upon their empirical selves in such a manner as to draw from their empirical natures the hidden personality, or at least the consciousness of it. And the repercussion of the rule is: in the attempt to do so you will convert your own empirical self into a spiritual personality, or at least evoke in yourself the idea of yourself as a spiritual personality.

Incontestably, in the attempt to change others we are compelled to try to change ourselves. The transformation undergone by a parent in the attempt to educate his child is an obvious instance. No parent is a true parent at the outset. As his perception deepens of the real needs of the child, which is so entirely dependent on his self-control, on his wisdom as well as his love, he will realize more and more his own deficiencies, and seek to remedy them. The same is true of the professor in relation to his students, of a leader and his followers, of a religious teacher and those who look to him for advice and help. In all such relations when rightly understood there is simultaneous growth on both sides. In the ethical sphere there is a law of levitation, the contrary of the law of gravitation that obtains in the realm of matter. We actually tend to rise from a lower to a higher level in proportion as we bend downward to lift those still lower than ourselves.